The Pink Sox head into the commerce deadline trying to deepen their beginning employees, and WEEI’s Rob Bradford reports that there’s a “sturdy probability” Boston will likely be within the combine for left-hander James Paxton, whom the Dodgers just designated for assignment. The Sox are fairly accustomed to Paxton, who spent the 2022-23 seasons within the group.
Accidents prevented Paxton from taking the mound for the Sox in 2022 and led him to train a participant choice for the 2023 season. He bounced again with 19 begins and 96 innings — each his highest marks since 2019 in New York. Paxton’s 4.50 ERA wasn’t a lot to have a look at, although metrics like SIERA (4.11) and FIP (3.77) painted a friendlier image. He fanned a pointy 24.6% of his opponents final season in opposition to a tidy 8% stroll charge.
Issues haven’t gone as nicely in the same workload with the Dodgers. Though Paxton’s 18 begins, 89 1/3 innings and 4.43 ERA all typically mirror final yr’s numbers with the Pink Sox, the remainder of his numbers are markedly worse.
Paxton averaged 95.2 mph on his fastball final season, per Statcast, however is all the way down to 93.2 mph on common in 2024. His strikeout charge has plummeted to 16.4%, whereas his stroll charge has ballooned to 12.3%. Paxton is getting fewer whiffs, fewer grounders and yielding way more onerous contact in 2024 than he did in 2023. The first distinction has been the lefty’s dip in dwelling run charge (9.5% HR/FB, 1.11 HR/9) and a career-low .267 common on balls in play.
Even when Paxton’s Ok-BB and batted-ball profiles are diminished relative to his 2023 ranges, he’s nonetheless been a surprisingly sturdy arm this yr. He’s made all 18 begins requested of him and has but to land on the injured checklist. He’d even be extremely reasonably priced from a monetary standpoint.
He’s enjoying the season on a one-year deal that got here with a $4M base wage, $2M bonus for making the Opening Day roster and $3M singing bonus. Paxton’s deal additionally allowed him to earn $4M off incentives primarily based on video games began. The lump sum of that signing bonus, Opening Day bonus and all of his incentives have already been paid out. The Pink Sox (or one other new membership) would solely owe him the prorated the rest of that $4M wage — about $1.48M as of this writing.
The Pink Sox presently have Tanner Houck, Nick Pivetta, Kutter Crawford and Brayan Bello within the rotation. Righties Cooper Criswell and Josh Winckowski have each made begins out of the fifth spot within the rotation. The Sox have misplaced Lucas Giolito, Garrett Whitlock and depth starter Chris Murhpy to season-ending surgical procedures. Bryan Mata is on the injured checklist and simply had a setback. Paxton would at the least give the Sox a stabilizing pressure behind the rotation. The Pink Sox have additionally reportedly looked into the Cubs’ Jameson Taillon as an choice.