After the 2018 season, the Yankees’ pitching staff looked thin. Young ace Luis Severino gave them a top-flight starter atop the rotation, and Masahiro Tanaka was a more-than-capable No. 3 starter with a tendency of stepping up in big spots, but Sonny Gray and Domingo Germán were disasters while CC Sabathia and J.A. Happ were on the wrong side of 45. Compared to the Boston Red Sox — led by Chris Sale, Nathan Eovaldi, and David Price — and the three-headed monster of Justin Verlander, Gerrit Cole,
and Dallas Keuchel in Houston, it was clear that the Bombers had a lot of catching up to do in the arms race.
To that end, the Yankees opened the 2018-2019 offseason by swinging a deal for James Paxton, sending a package centered on top pitching prospect Justus Sheffield to the Seattle Mariners.
James Alston Paxton
Born: November 6, 1988 (Richmond, British Columbia, Canada)
Yankees Tenure: 2019-20
Born and raised in British Columbia, Paxton made a name for himself on the Canadian youth baseball circuit, ultimately helping to lead Team Canada to a bronze medal at the 2006 World Junior Baseball Championship. Following his high school career, the Big Maple took his talents to the United States, joining the University of Kentucky. Between his performance with the Wildcats (first as a reliever, then as a starter) and with the summer Alaska Baseball League, he quickly found himself on the radar of Major League ballclubs.
After a junior year in which he struck out 115 batters in 78.1 innings, he was drafted by the Toronto Blue Jays with the 37th overall pick of the 2009 draft (the compensation Toronto received when the Yankees signed A.J. Burnett). Unfortunately, they were unable to come a deal, and Paxton opted to return to Kentucky for his senior year… that is, until the Blue Jays told the media that they had been negotiating with Scott Boras, not with Paxton’s family. Back in the pre-NIL days, hiring an agent changed your status from an amateur to a pro, and he was declared ineligible; an attempt to sue in order to be reinstated led nowhere, and eventually, Paxton withdrew from Kentucky to begin his professional career.
Paxton spent the 2010 season with the Grand Prairie AirHogs, an American Association team which allowed him to retain draft eligibility. On the back of a solid, albeit unspectacular, performance there, he was selected by the Seattle Mariners in the fourth round of the 2010 draft. After a lengthy negotiation, he finally put pen to paper in March 2011, and began what would be a rapid ascent through the minor leagues. He reached Double-A by the end of 2011, received an invitation to spring training in 2012, and finally made his Major League debut on September 7, 2013.
Thanks to a strong cup of coffee in 2013, Paxton began the 2014 season in the Seattle rotation, where he would spend the next five seasons. Unfortunately, he fell into a rather predictable pattern. When healthy, he was one of the league’s premier pitchers: his 13.2 fWAR from 2014 to 2018 ranked 26th out of the 88 starters who went at least 550 innings, and his 18.8 K-BB% ranked 14th — just one-tenth of a percentage point behind Cole and three-tenths behind Tanaka. And on May 8, 2018, he became just the second Canadian-born pitcher to throw a no-hitter in baseball history — a testament to his ability.
However, Paxton was hardly healthy for a full season: he made more than 20 starts just twice in that span, having hit the IL with a lat strain in 2014, a strained tendon in his finger in 2015, a forearm strain and a pec strain in 2017, and back inflammation and a forearm strain in 2018.
When the Yankees acquired Paxton that winter, they gambled that his ability on the mound would be worth the risk of his lengthy injury history. In 2019, that was absolutely the case. In the year where pretty much every member of the Yankees spent time on the injured list, the oft-injured pitcher put together the healthiest season of his career, making 29 starts and spending just a few weeks of May on the shelf.
Despite a nasty tendency to surrender home runs in the first inning, Paxton anchored the Yankees rotation, and when the Yankees needed him most in October, he delivered. Getting the ball with the team down 3-1 in the ALCS and having dropped three consecutive games, Paxton shook off two less-than-stellar postseason starts to shut down the Astros lineup, striking out nine and allowing just one run in six innings to send the series back to Houston. Sure, things didn’t get any better from there, but that’s another story (and not any of Paxton’s fault, either).
As good as things went for Paxton in 2019, however, that’s how bad 2020 went. On February 5th, he underwent lumbar surgery, which would have sidelined him for 3-4 months if the season hadn’t been delayed because of the pandemic. Although he made it back in time for the late-July Opening Day, he put together the worst season of his career, posting a 6.64 ERA in 20.1 innings across five starts before hitting the shelf again, this time with a left flexor tendon strain — perhaps the reason for the diminished velocity that made him suddenly very hittable.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Yankees opted to let Paxton walk in free agency, and he returned to the Seattle Mariners on a one-year deal. After just 1.1 innings, though, he left the game with an elbow injury, and later that week, it was announced that he needed Tommy John surgery.
A free agent again that winter, Paxton returned to the AL East joining the Red Sox on a one-year deal with a two-year club option and a one-year player option. A lat tear ended his attempt at a comeback in 2022, prompting Boston to reject the club option and Paxton to accept the player option. Due to a right hamstring strain, he began the 2023 season on the IL, and finally, on May 12, 2023, he made his Boston debut. Over the next two months, he pitched well, posting a 3.34 ERA in 13 starts in his first bit of extended action since 2020. Boston floated Paxton at the deadline, but ultimately held onto him in an attempt to make a bid for a Wild Card spot after a dominant July. That would turn out to be a mistake for everyone involved: a mediocre August and terrible October sent the Red Sox to the basement of the AL East, and Paxton battled inconsistency before being shut down with knee inflammation at the start of September.
Paxton signed with the Dodgers on a one-year deal in January 2024, a contract that was originally $11 million but reworked and lowered to $7 million with playing-time incentives due to unspecified health issues. He made 18 starts for Los Angeles, helping them deal with a rash of injuries to the rotation, before being surprisingly and unceremoniously designated for assignment to make room for River Ryan and Clayton Kershaw on the active and 40-man rosters, respectively. The Red Sox claimed him off waivers, and after three starts, he suffered a calf tear that ended his season.
The Big Maple retired from Major League Baseball after the 2024 season, but that wouldn’t be the last time we saw him on a mound. Paxton accepted the invitation to pitch for Team Canada during the 2026 World Baseball Classic. Working out of the bullpen, he touched 97 mph on his fastball in two appearances, including 2.2 scoreless frames against Cuba to advance out of the group stage. Despite potential interest from pro teams, Paxton has reiterated that he will remain retired. Aside from spending time with his family, he is in the process of completing the business degree he abandoned at the University of Kentucky when he was declared ineligible more than 15 years ago; after that, he intends to pursue a Master’s degree in sports psychology.
Happy birthday to James Paxton!
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