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James Paxton

AL East Notes: Red Sox, Paxton, LeMahieu, Blue Jays

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The Red Sox largely failed in their pursuit of starting pitching this winter, swapping lefty Chris Sale out for Lucas Giolito only for the latter to miss the entire 2024 season due to a UCL injury, making right-handed depth options Chase Anderson and Cooper Criswell the club’s only starters added this winter with a chance to impact the 2024 club. The club coming up empty is not an indication they weren’t involved in the pitching market at all, however, with Pete Abraham of The Boston Globe reporting that the club was a finalist for southpaw James Paxton, per the lefty himself.

Paxton, 35, spent the past two seasons in the Red Sox organization but only pitched in 2023. He made 19 starts for the club last year, pitching to a 4.50 ERA (101 ERA+) and 4.68 FIP overall. While he posted a strong 2.73 ERA and 3.63 FIP in ten starts prior to the All Star break, Paxton’s brutal final three starts in August and September caused his numbers to balloon as he allowed a whopping 17 runs in 9 2/3 innings of work before being shut down for the season due to knee inflammation.

Abraham relays that, according to the left-hander, there was mutual interest in a reunion between his camp and the Red Sox before he ultimately settled on pitching closer to his West Coast home in Seattle. Adding the veteran southpaw to Boston’s heavily young and right-handed rotation mix would have made plenty of sense for the club, but instead the team is set to rely on internal youngsters like Kutter Crawford, Garrett Whitlock, and Tanner Houck to round out the rotation alongside Brayan Bello and Nick Pivetta.

More from around the AL East…

  • Yankees infielder DJ LeMahieu spoke to reporters (including those at MLB.com) yesterday regarding his rehab from a non-displaced fracture in his right foot and provided a positive update, suggesting that he could be nearing a return to action. LeMahieu indicated that he’s “making progress” after running at roughly 90 percent effort and taking batting practice on the field at Yankee Stadium over the weekend. Per manager Aaron Boone, the next step for LeMahieu is further imaging later in the week before a potential minor league rehab assignment. If the veteran can avoid further setbacks, it’s possible he could return before the end of the month. In the meantime, the club figures to continue relying on Jon Berti and Oswaldo Cabrera at the hot corner.
  • Blue Jays manager John Schneider spoke to reporters (including Sportsnet’s Shi Davidi) yesterday to provide an update on right-hander Erik Swanson, who started the season on the injured list due to a bout of forearm tightness last month. Per Schneider, Swanson is scheduled to be evaluated today after throwing a rehab inning at the Double-A level last night to decide if he’s ready to be activated when first eligible on Tuesday, though Davidi adds that Schneider indicated an additional rehab appearance is possible. If Swanson is to make another appearance in the minors before returning to the big league roster, it likely won’t come for a few days, as the right-hander is scheduled to be in Toronto for the club’s home opener tomorrow evening. Swanson joined the club during the 2022-23 offseason as part of the return in the Teoscar Hernandez trade and quickly established himself as the top set-up option for closer Jordan Romano, pitching to a 2.97 ERA with a 3.51 FIP in 69 appearances last year.

Dodgers Notes: Paxton, Muncy, Cartaya, Frasso

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James Paxton threw 96 innings with the Red Sox last season, marking his return to somewhat regular action after injuries limited him to 21 2/3 big league frames in 2020-21 and no innings at all in 2022.  Paxton’s comeback year was then basically two seasons in one — the excellent 2.76 ERA he posted over his first 56 innings, followed by an ugly 6.98 ERA in his final 40 innings of work.

As Paxton tells Mike DiGiovanna of the Los Angeles Times, “I felt like I kind of reached a point where my body was just a little burned out.  I didn’t have much left in the tank.”  Paxton kept pushing since the Red Sox were still on the fringes of the playoff race, and struggled in particular once he was moved to a regular turn of four days’ rest between starts.

“Early in the season, I had a lot of extra rest, and then we went to a shorter leash.  Coming off a surgery and that much time off, I wasn’t conditioned for that,” Paxton said.  “If you start off going [every five days] your body gets accustomed to that, whereas if you go six all the time, that’s what your body gets accustomed to.  We’re creatures of habit.”

Despite the rough finish to his season, Paxton still landed $7MM from the Dodgers on a one-year free agent contract, even if that $7MM total dropped from an initial $11MM guarantee due to some concerns the team had about his overall health.  The 35-year-old lefty is hopeful that getting some innings under his belt last season will better help him manage the length of the 2024 campaign, plus L.A. will deploy “somewhat of a six-man rotation,” according to assistant pitching coach Connor McGuinness.  The idea is to keep all of the Dodgers’ hurlers fresh and healthy, plus some other reinforcements in Clayton Kershaw and Dustin May could join the pitching mix after the middle of the season.

Whereas Paxton’s 2023 season was basically divided in two, Max Muncy’s year was a bit more of a roller-coaster before he finished a pretty typical year of production.  The infielder hit .212/.333/.475 over 579 plate appearances while matching his career high of 36 home runs, translating to a 118 wRC+.  Los Angeles was impressed enough to sign Muncy to a new contract extension, guaranteeing him $24MM through 2025 while also tacking a $10MM club option on his services for 2026.

Muncy’s recipe of homers, walks, low averages, and high strikeouts is pretty set, but as he enters his age-33 season, Muncy feels he has more to offer as a defensive player.  He told reporters (including Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register) that his offseason regiment included cutting 15 pounds and focusing more on flexibility training.

“It was just making sure my feet move a little bit more, and getting the knees healthy.  Last year, I had a little trouble with just not staying down on the ball,” Muncy said.  “I was coming up out of my fielding stance and everything.  And when you’re doing that, it’s hard to read the hops and I kept putting myself in bad positions last year with bad hops….So the focus was just making sure that my feet stay moving.  Just allowing myself to read the ball and make moves on it.”

There’s basically nowhere to go but up for Muncy defensively, as the public defensive metrics (-7 Outs Above Average, -3 Defensive Runs Saved, -14.8 UZR/150) were unanimously unimpressed with his third base glovework in 2023.  The move to more or less a full-time third base role has come as the Dodgers have brought superstar talent into Muncy’s other positions — Shohei Ohtani is now locked in at DH, Freddie Freeman at first base, and Mookie Betts is now moving into  everyday second base duty.

“I’ve been very open about how I want to stay here for the rest of my career….So if I want to play here, I need to make sure I’m in the field, and the best way to do that is just put myself in a good spot,” Muncy said.

In other Dodgers news, GM Brandon Gomes told Plunkett and other reporters that catching prospect Diego Cartaya has been dealing with a back problem but the “full expectation” is that Cartaya will be set for the start of the Double-A season.  Back problems have bothered Cartaya in the past, and the last thing the catcher needs is an injury setback as he looks to bounce back from a difficult season.  A top-20 prospect in the sport heading into the 2023 campaign, Cartaya hit only .189/.278/.379 over 403 PA at Double-A last season, dropping his stock as a potential catcher of the future.

Nick Frasso is another top-100 prospect looking at a lost year, as he was already expected to miss the 2024 season after undergoing shoulder surgery back in November.  Gomes added that Frasso also had a “clean-up” surgery on his right hip labrum, though it doesn’t appear as though this second procedure will impact the right-hander’s timeline.  If all goes well, Gomes thinks Frasso will be able to pitch in the Arizona Fall League.

James Paxton Discusses Dodgers Contract, Physical

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Newly-signed Dodgers southpaw James Paxton spoke to reporters (including Jack Harris of the Los Angeles Times) today regarding his recent one-year deal with the club and the physical he underwent that led to the lefty’s guarantee dropping from $11MM to just $7MM on the deal. Paxton noted during the scrum that the reduction in the contract’s guarantee wasn’t due to any one specific injury concern the Dodgers had but instead was due to the combination of his history with Tommy John surgery, which kept him away from a big league mound for almost two entire seasons, and the knee issue that ended his 2023 campaign in early September.

“I’m an older player now, and I’m not perfect anymore,” Paxton told reporters, as relayed by Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register. “…So there’s things that have kind of built up over the years.”

In spite of the concerns that stemmed from his physical, Paxton indicated that he has “no doubt” that he’ll be ready for the start of the 2024 campaign, adding that he feels “strong and ready” as he enters camp. Per his revised, incentive-laden deal, Paxton will receive a $2MM bonus for being on the roster for either the start of the Korea series against the Padres, which begins on March 20, or the club’s stateside opener against the Cardinals the following week.

Paxton, 35, has been held back by injuries frequently throughout his career. Drafted by the Blue Jays with the 37th overall selection in the 2009 draft, the southpaw made his big league debut as a member of the Mariners back in 2013 and immediately impressed with a 1.50 ERA in a four-start cup of coffee. Through his age-30 season, Paxton regularly impressed when he was on the mound, showing the quality results of a #2 starter with a 3.50 ERA, 3.28 FIP, and 26.5% strikeout rate. Unfortunately, Paxton was limited to just 733 innings of work across those seven seasons by injury woes, which would only intensify as the calendar flipped to 2020. From 2020-22, Paxton managed just six appearances and 21 2/3 innings due to injuries.

The big lefty returned to the mound as a member of the Red Sox in May of last year and early in the season appeared to have made a triumphant return to the dominant form of his younger days. Through his first ten starts of the season, Paxton posted an impressive 2.73 ERA over 56 innings of work with a whopping 29% strikeout rate. Unfortunately, the wheels came off for the veteran southpaw after the All Star break as he struggled to a 6.98 ERA and 6.16 FIP in 40 innings of work across his final nine starts of the season before he was shut down for the season with the aforementioned bout of knee inflammation following a start where Paxton allowed six runs while recording just four outs.

After that brutal series of struggles down the stretch, Paxton finished the 2023 campaign with a 4.50 ERA that was almost exactly league average by measure of ERA+. While the form the lefty flashed early in the season with Boston last year would make him a playoff-caliber arm, Paxton need only repeat his full-season performance from 2023 to be a useful piece for a Dodgers club looking to add veteran innings to a rotation that figures to be dominated by young starters with little to no big league experience like Bobby Miller and Yoshinobu Yamamoto as well as players with substantial injury histories of their own like Clayton Kershaw, Tyler Glasnow, and Walker Buehler.

That rotation mix offers little in the way of certainty, but young arms like Emmet Sheehan, Gavin Stone, and Michael Grove appear well-positioned to help out as needed throughout the season. An opportunity seems likely to be immediately available for those youngsters as both Buehler and Kershaw are expected to open the season on the injured list, though club officials have indicated that Buehler’s stay on the shelf could be a relatively short one.

Health Issue Led To Change In James Paxton’s Deal With Dodgers

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The Dodgers signed left-hander James Paxton to a one-year deal this week, though the financial details of the contract changed from the initial reporting. Per a report today from Fabian Ardaya and Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic, an unknown health issue led to a lesser guarantee, though it wasn’t serious enough to scuttle the deal completely.

As details of the agreement were initially trickling out last week, it was reported as an $11MM guarantee for the lefty. But Rosenthal reported this morning that the guarantee was actually just $7MM. It appears some sort of health concern popped up, which was enough to knock $4MM off the guarantee but not so serious as to cause the Dodgers to walk away. Paxton can still earn a total of $13MM via bonuses* as long as he makes the Opening Day roster and eventually makes at least 18 starts. Neither the club nor Paxton’s agent Scott Boras provided details for the report from The Athletic, citing HIPAA.

Health or the lack thereof has frequently been an issue for Paxton throughout his career. Now 35 and about to enter his 11th major league season, he has never reached 30 starts or 161 innings pitched in a big league campaign. He hardly pitched at all in the 2020-2022 period, with a left flexor strain keeping him to just five starts in the shortened 2020 season. Then Tommy John surgery wiped out most of the next two years, with a torn lat preventing him from returning late in 2022.

Last year saw some encouraging progress from those significant injury issues but it wasn’t totally smooth sailing. A hamstring strain in the spring pushed his season debut until May. He was able to stay healthy from there until September, finishing the season on the injured list due to right knee inflammation. His 19 starts and 96 innings pitched were more than he logged in the previous three years combined, but he also seemed to run out of gas. He had a 2.73 ERA through his first 10 starts but then a 6.98 mark in the final nine.

It seems he’s still not 100% but the Dodgers will take a shot on him regardless. He has a 3.69 ERA in his career, pairing a 26.3% strikeout rate with a 7.5% walk rate. The club is generally unafraid to bank on talented players even if they have injury concerns, having signed guys like Blake Treinen, Daniel Hudson, Jimmy Nelson, J.P. Feyereisen and Alex Reyes  in recent years.

They are now set to go into 2024 with a rotation featuring plenty of talent but also a decent amount of uncertainty. Yoshinobu Yamamoto has loads of success in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball but has no MLB track record yet. Walker Buehler missed all of last year recovering from Tommy John surgery. Tyler Glasnow has never topped 120 innings in a major league season due to his own injury history. Bobby Miller was good last year but still doesn’t have a full year of big league experience. Options like Emmet Sheehan, Michael Grove and Gavin Stone are similarly unproven. Paxton would have already come with concerns just based on his track record but those will only be enhanced now that he’s known to be dealing with some kind of ailment.

It’s also possible that the club could re-sign Clayton Kershaw, as it has in each of the past two offseasons. But he is also a question mark, having undergone shoulder surgery in November that will keep him out of action until midseason.

* Paxton can get a $2MM bonus either for being on the roster for the Dodgers’ season opener in South Korea against the Padres on March 20 or their domestic opener against the Cardinals on March 28. Otherwise, he can earn a $1MM bonus if added to the roster before April 15. Paxton will also earn a $600K bonus for making his sixth, eighth, tenth, 12th and 16th starts of the season, plus a $1MM bonus for reaching 18 starts. With $4MM in bonuses based on starts and the $2MM early-season roster bonus, he could add $6MM to his $7MM guarantee, bringing his total earnings for the year to $13MM.

Dodgers Sign James Paxton

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Jan. 31: The guarantee on Paxton’s deal is actually just $7MM, reports Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. That comes in the form of the previously reported $3MM signing bonus and a $4MM salary. Additionally, Paxton will receive a $2MM bonus for being on the roster for either (but not both) the roster for the Dodgers’ season opener in South Korea against the Padres on March 20 or their domestic opener against the Cardinals on March 28. If not, he’d earn a $1MM bonus if added to the roster before April 15.

Paxton will also earn a $600K bonus for making his sixth, eighth, tenth, 12th and 16th starts of the season, plus a $1MM bonus for reaching 18 starts. In all, there’s an additional $6MM available in incentives. Essentially, if he’s healthy enough for to make the Opening Day roster and make 18 starts, he’ll earn $13MM on the one-year arrangement.

Jan. 23: An active offseason continues, as the Dodgers announced they have signed left-hander James Paxton to a one-year deal. The Boras Corporation client is reportedly guaranteed $11MM, taking the form of a $3MM signing bonus and an $8MM salary. He’d also receive a $1MM roster bonus if he’s healthy enough to be active on Opening Day (or $500K if he starts the year on the injured list but returns by April 15).

The deal also contains up to $1MM in performance bonuses. He’d lock in an extra $250K for making 16 and 18 starts apiece and would max out the deal with another $500K for reaching 20 starts. Los Angeles has yet to formally announce the contract, but they already have a vacancy on the 40-man roster.

Los Angeles has been MLB’s most aggressive team. While they’ve committed upwards of a billion dollars in free agency, the rotation depth still stands as a bit of a question mark. Shohei Ohtani won’t pitch in 2024 as he works back from elbow surgery. The Dodgers signed Yoshinobu Yamamoto and acquired Tyler Glasnow to join Walker Buehler  and Bobby Miller atop the starting staff.

There’s huge upside with that quartet, but it’s also a group that carries some risk. Excellent as Yamamoto has been in Japan, he has yet to pitch in the majors. Glasnow’s career high in innings at the MLB level, established last season, is only 120 frames. Buehler missed all of last season recovering from his second Tommy John surgery. Miller had a very good rookie season but only has 22 MLB starts to his name.

L.A. had a few notable departures from the rotation. Julio Urías is a free agent and unlikely to return as MLB investigates domestic violence allegations against him. Clayton Kershaw is still unsigned. While the Dodgers would surely welcome him back, he wouldn’t be an option until at least midseason as he rehabs from shoulder surgery. Ryan Pepiot was dealt to Tampa Bay in the Glasnow deal.

Tony Gonsolin could miss all of next season after undergoing his own TJS procedure in late August. Dustin May will be sidelined into the season after a flexor tendon surgery in early July. With both pitchers starting the season on the injured list, Los Angeles may have had to turn the fifth starter role to one of Emmet Sheehan, Michael Grove, Ryan Yarbrough or Gavin Stone.

Should they finalize a deal with Paxton, he’d take the final spot in the Opening Day staff. He’s certainly not a bankable source of innings either. The 35-year-old has battled myriad injuries throughout his career, particularly over the last four years. He was limited to five starts during the shortened 2020 season. His elbow gave out during his first start of the ’21 campaign, necessitating Tommy John surgery. His efforts to make a comeback late in the ’22 season were derailed when he tore his lat on a minor league rehab stint.

A right hamstring strain forced the 6’4″ southpaw to open last year on the IL as well. He finally made it back on the mound in the second week of May. Despite the long layoff, Paxton brandished the 95 MPH fastball he’d owned before the surgery. For a while, that was translating into excellent results. The Canadian hurler worked to a 2.73 ERA while striking out more than 29% of opposing hitters in 56 innings through the All-Star Break.

He couldn’t maintain that form. Paxton allowed nearly seven earned runs per nine over 40 innings after the Midsummer Classic. His strikeouts plummeted to a modest 19.4% clip, while his walks jumped a few percentage points relative to the first half. Right knee inflammation sent him back to the IL in early September and ended his season a few weeks early. He finished the year with a 4.50 ERA in 96 innings covering 19 starts. His 24.6% strikeout rate was slightly above par, while he walked an average 8% of batters faced.

Given the volatility associated with the Dodgers’ collection of in-house arms, there’s an argument they should’ve pursued a more stable source of volume innings. That’s generally not how they’ve preferred to construct pitching staffs, however. The L.A. front office has shown a willingness to roll the dice on upside plays while accepting health risks. Paxton would be another acquisition of that ilk.

Of course, the Dodgers have the freedom to place those kinds of bets thanks to their spending capacity. Roster Resource projects the organization’s luxury tax commitments for the upcoming season at a staggering $301MM. Signing Paxton would push that number around $313MM, moving ahead of the Yankees and alongside the Mets for the highest payroll in the sport. That comes with a hefty tax bill.

The Dodgers are in the final tier of luxury penalization and have exceeded the threshold in each of the last two years. As a result, they’re taxed at a 110% rate on any spending at this point. Paxton’s deal would come with a $13.2MM fee, bringing their total expenditure to $25.2MM for one year of his services.

That’s a mark that few teams, if any, would come close to matching. Yet it’s the latest reflection of their all-in approach. Paxton would join Ohtani, Yamamoto, Glasnow, Teoscar Hernández, Manuel Margot and returnees Jason Heyward and Joe Kelly as notable offseason pickups as the Dodgers push for an 11th NL West title in the last 12 years.

Jon Heyman of the New York Post first reported the Dodgers and Paxton were working on an agreement. Alden González of ESPN reported the approximate $11MM guarantee. Fabian Ardaya of the Athletic reported the presence of performance bonuses. Heyman was first to confirm the deal was done and the presence of the Opening Day roster bonus, while The Associated Press specified the performance bonus terms and the contract breakdown.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Orioles Interested In James Paxton

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The Orioles have shown some interest in free agent left-hander James Paxton, according to Jon Heyman of the New York Post.  Paxton is the latest of many pitchers linked to the O’s on the rumor mill this offseason, largely in the middle tier of the free agent market — as Heyman phrases it, “every starter from Marcus Stroman on down.”

Paxton is theoretically a familiar AL East opponent for the Orioles given his recent time with the Red Sox and Yankees, though Paxton hasn’t actually faced Baltimore since 2019 when he was part of New York’s pitching staff.  This speaks to both a quirk of the schedule and the simple fact that injuries have largely kept the southpaw on the shelf for most of the last four seasons.  After pitching just 21 2/3 innings total from 2020-22, Paxton was healthy enough to toss 96 innings for the Red Sox last year, posting a 4.50 ERA, 24.6% strikeout rate, and an eight percent walk rate.

This 2023 work was bookended by two stints on the injured list.  A hamstring strain delayed Paxton’s season debut until May 12, and his last outing came on September 1 before right knee inflammation shut him down for the remainder of the campaign.  It is worth noting that Paxton had a 3.34 ERA over his first 86 1/3 innings and 16 starts, before getting tagged for a 14.90 ERA in 9 2/3 frames in his last three outings.

If the sour ending can be attributed to his knee problem or perhaps just fatigue from his first significant workload in years, Paxton’s 2023 results indicate that he can still find success against big league batters.  Naturally injuries are always going to be a lingering concern for Paxton and he won’t be counted on as an innings-eater, but he could be an interesting fit on a young Orioles team.

Kyle Bradish, Grayson Rodriguez, Dean Kremer, and John Means seem locked in as the top four members of the Orioles rotation, and Paxton would therefore be the primary fifth starter.  In order to preserve Paxton’s health, the O’s could manage his innings and usage by having any of Cole Irvin, Tyler Wells, Bruce Zimmermann, DL Hall, or Jonathan Heasley either take spot starts, or work in some kind of non-“starting” capacity (i.e. as piggyback starters or opener/bulk pitcher combinations) to cover innings.

Signing Paxton wouldn’t necessarily raise the ceiling of the rotation, yet if a frontline ace isn’t available in the Orioles’ price range (whether financially or in trade costs), a relatively smaller outlay for Paxton might at least help raise the floor of what the O’s could expect from their pitching.  It would also leave some flexibility for Baltimore to perhaps pursue another starting option closer to the trade deadline.

Baltimore has seemed unwilling to make a splashy move in the free agent pitching market, as a source tells Heyman that such top available hurlers as Jordan Montgomery or Blake Snell aren’t realistic options on the Orioles’ radar “unless the market collapsed.”  However, the O’s did at least check in on Aaron Nola before he re-signed with the Phillies, and they have reportedly had interest in such trade targets as Dylan Cease and Corbin Burnes.  The team also looked into such upper-tier relievers as Josh Hader, Jordan Hicks, and Robert Stephenson before inking Craig Kimbrel to a one-year, $13MM deal.

Latest On Red Sox’s Free Agent Pursuits

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The Red Sox have yet to make any waves on the free agent market. Boston’s offseason spending thus far consists of a $1MM signing of depth arm Cooper Criswell. Boston has been linked to a number of high-profile players in recent weeks, many of whom remain available. The Sox were at least on the periphery of the Yoshinobu Yamamoto bidding in its final few days. With free agency’s top pitcher headed to Los Angeles, first-year chief baseball officer Craig Breslow and his staff are looking elsewhere.

The Red Sox have been linked to Jordan Montgomery and, to a lesser extent, defending NL Cy Young winner Blake Snell at points this offseason. While there’s no indication they’re out of the market for either player, Alex Speier of the Boston Globe wrote over the weekend they appeared more engaged with the next tier of free agents.

Speier indicates the Sox remain involved on Shota Imanaga and Lucas Giolito on the rotation front while showing interest in outfielder Teoscar Hernández — all of whom have previously been reported as targets. Of that group, Imanaga figures to have the highest price tag. The #2 pitcher moving from Japan this offseason, he’s coming off a 2.80 ERA with an NPB-leading 174 strikeouts over 148 innings.

Imanaga doesn’t have the ceiling that Yamamoto possesses, but he’s generally viewed as a likely mid-rotation starter. As with Yamamoto, Imanaga is available via the posting system. The Yokohama BayStars formally posted him on November 27. That opened a 45-day window for the southpaw to sign with a major league club. He’ll land with an MLB team by January 11 at the latest. Speier reports that Imanaga will travel to the U.S. shortly after the New Year to meet with interested teams. The Giants, Cubs and Yankees are among the others linked to Imanaga within the past month.

While Imanaga figures to secure four or five guaranteed years, a reunion with James Paxton would be a much shorter commitment. WEEI’s Rob Bradford recently reported the Sox were interested in bringing the southpaw back. Chris Cotillo of MassLive wrote this evening that the team has maintained contact with Paxton throughout the offseason, although there’s no indication a deal is imminent.

Paxton, 35, pitched to a 4.50 ERA over 19 starts last season. He struck out almost a quarter of opponents while inducing swinging strikes on 12.7% of his offerings. Paxton is still capable of missing a decent number of bats behind a fastball that sits in the mid-90s, but he hasn’t been able to shoulder many innings. He made only six appearances between 2020-22, missing most of that stretch to Tommy John surgery and a pair of lat strains. Paxton had a pair of injured list stints last season, landing on the shelf early with a hamstring strain before knee inflammation ended his year in early September.

Red Sox Reportedly Showing “Strong Interest” In James Paxton

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The Red Sox are showing “strong interest” in a reunion with left-hander James Paxton, according Rob Bradford of WEEI. The 35-year-old lefty signed with Boston prior to the 2021 season while rehabbing Tommy John surgery and missed the entire 2022 season before making 19 starts for the club in 2023.

Ever since Paxton made his major league debut in 2013, he’s been dogged by injuries throughout his career. In recent years, Paxton has had back surgery in addition to the aforementioned UCL procedure while also spending time on the shelf due to knee, hamstring, and forearm issues. Even in the earlier days of his career, Paxton ranging from a strained pectoral muscle to a left lat strain. Despite those injury concerns, however, Paxton has flashed the potential to be a quality #2 starter when fully healthy. From 2016 to 2019, Paxton made 101 starts and posted a 3.60 ERA and 3.16 FIP with a 28.5% strikeout rate across 568 innings of work.

In the first half of the 2023 season, Paxton appeared to have recaptured that dominant form from earlier in his career. In his first nine starts of the season, Paxton struck out a whopping 31.1% of batters faced while posting a 2.70 ERA and 3.22 FIP over 50 innings of work. Unfortunately, that dominant form did not last throughout the remainder of the season as Paxton’s final ten starts saw him post a 6.46 ERA while he struck out just 18.6% of batters faced in 46 innings of work.

While it’s fair to point out that the veteran lefty’s overall numbers are skewed by a 9 2/3 inning stint that saw him give up a whopping 17 runs (16 earned) before going on the injured list with knee inflammation, even his full-season ERA of 4.50 and strikeout rate of 24.6% paint Paxton as more of a back-end starter than anything else. While it’s certainly possible he could improve upon those numbers with better health in 2024, it seems unwise for the Red Sox to expect him to revert to ace-level production in his age-35 season.

With that being said, Boston would surely benefit from adding more than one starter to its rotation this offseason, which could help to take pressure off young arms like Kutter Crawford, Tanner Houck, and Garrett Whitlock while also helping to reinforce the club’s depth in the event of additional injury woes for Chris Sale. Paxton could therefore be a desirable secondary addition for a Red Sox club that figures to continue its focus on adding a front-end starting pitcher even after missing out on Yoshinobu Yamamoto earlier this week, particularly considering the left-hander’s previously expressed desire to return to Boston in 2024.

No Talks Between James Paxton, Red Sox

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James Paxton returned to a big league mound for the first time since 2021, when he pitched just 1 1/3 innings with the Mariners, and remained healthy enough to make 19 starts for the Red Sox. Playing out the second season of a two-year, $10MM contract — Paxton exercised a $4MM player option at the end of the 2022 season — the 34-year-old lefty is slated to head back to the open market once the 2023 campaign concludes. Paxton tells Alex Speier of the Boston Globe that he’d love to return to the Sox next year but hasn’t yet had any discussions on the matter with team officials.

Any such conversations figure to be delayed now, of course, with the Red Sox seeking a new baseball operations leader following yesterday’s dismissal of chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom. General manager Brian O’Halloran remains with the team and is pairing with assistant GMs Eddie Romero, Raquel Ferreira and Michael Groopman to oversee matters in the short term, but the Sox also announced yesterday that O’Halloran would be offered a new role within the baseball operations department.

Paxton’s season officially drew to a close earlier this month when Boston put him on the 15-day injured list due to inflammation in his right knee. While there are more than 15 days remaining on the schedule, it was announced at the time of that IL placement that Nick Pivetta will be replacing Paxton in the rotation for the remainder of the year. There’s no indication that Paxton’s knee is a major issue, but he apparently needed more than a minimal absence and won’t make it back to the bump this year.

As such, Paxton’s season drew to a close with 96 innings of 4.50 ERA ball. That’s hardly a dominant showing, but much of the damage against him came in the three short starts preceding his placement on the injured list. Paxton carried a 3.34 ERA, 26.3% strikeout rate and 6.5% walk rate through his first 16 starts (86 1/3 innings) before being tagged for 16 earned runs on 18 hits (four of them home runs) and 10 walks in a span of just 9 2/3 innings.

Paxton’s injury history is about as extensive as you’ll find among established, active pitchers. He’s had both back surgery and Tommy John surgery in the past three years alone, also missing varying lengths of time due to a forearm strain, a hamstring strain, knee inflammation and a flexor strain — all just since the 2020 season alone. That said, his upside is notable as well. A healthy Paxton misses bats at a high level, limits walks and home runs, and induces grounders at a least a league-average clip. From 2016-19, he tallied 568 innings of 3.60 ERA ball — highlighted by a 2.98 ERA in 24 starts during the 2017 season with Seattle.

Whoever takes over baseball operations in Boston will need to address the rotation in some capacity this winter. Returning to the fold in 2024 will be oft-injured Chris Sale and a slew of less-experienced arms like Brayan Bello, Tanner Houck and Kutter Crawford. Of the bunch, Bello is the only one who’s had a full, productive season in the rotation. Pivetta remains under club control as well, though he’ll be due a raise on this year’s $5.35MM salary and could be non-tendered or moved in a change-of-scenery swap. Keeping Paxton would maintain some continuity and add upside to the group, but his injury history has always made him feel like a bit of a tough fit with a Boston rotation mix that features so many other question marks. That’s not to say he can’t or won’t be brought back in the end, but the Sox will need to add additional stability even if Paxton is re-signed.

Red Sox Place James Paxton On 15-Day Injured List

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The Red Sox announced that left-hander James Paxton has been place on the 15-day injured list (retroactive to September 7) due to right knee inflammation.  In other transactions, Boston called up right-hander Nick Robertson from Triple-A Worcester and activated righty Garrett Whitlock from the bereavement list, while left-hander Joe Jacques has been optioned to Triple-A.

The timing of the IL move means that Paxton’s 2023 campaign is over, as Red Sox manager Alex Cora told The Boston Globe’s Alex Speier and other reporters that Nick Pivetta will take Paxton’s place in the rotation for the remainder of the season.  Paxton will finish the year with a 4.50 ERA over 96 innings, as well as a 24.6% strikeout rate and 8.0% walk rate that were both above the league average.

Considering that injuries (including a Tommy John surgery) limited Paxton to only six games and 21 2/3 total innings between the 2020-22 seasons, just getting onto a mound and making it almost the entire way through the 2023 season counts as a significant achievement for the southpaw.  A Spring Training hamstring injury delayed Paxton’s debut until May 12, but he pitched well over his first four months before seemingly starting to wear down during August.  Paxton was tagged for 16 earned runs over his last three starts and 9 2/3 innings, putting a sour end on what had been a solid year.

The Sox had already planned to push Paxton’s next start back a few days, but since Cora implied that Paxton’s knee had been bothering him, the team has opted to shut the lefty down rather than risk any further injury.  While Paxton hadn’t been contributing much in his last few outings anyway, the IL decision also seems to hint how the Red Sox might be slowly turning to look towards 2024 rather than the wild card race, as Cora implied in today’s meeting with reporters.  Boston is seven games back of the last AL wild card slot, and with just a 72-70 record, finishing above .500 is no guarantee for the Sox, let alone a playoff berth.

The outcome might lead to some hindsight about Boston’s decision to keep Paxton at the trade deadline, as the Rangers (and likely several other teams) had interest in the left-hander prior to August 1.  For the second straight season, Sox chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom opted to both buy and sell at the deadline, though this year’s Red Sox club was closer in the race than the 2022 edition.  The very streaky nature of this year’s club also makes it understandable why Bloom didn’t swing too hard in either transactional direction at the deadline, and since the Sox were already hurting for pitching, it makes sense why the team would’ve wanted to keep Paxton as a key piece of whatever late-season push might have been in store.

With Paxton’s 2023 now over, it is possible he has also thrown his last pitch in a Red Sox uniform.  He is set to hit free agency this winter, and it will be interesting to see what kind of deal Paxton could land as he enters his age-35 season and on the back of a year that saw mostly good results when healthy.  Assuming this knee problem doesn’t develop into anything serious, Paxton could have a case for a multi-year agreement, though teams will likely prefer a one-year deal with vesting/club options (maybe similar to his previous deal with the Red Sox) given his lengthy health history.

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