Analysis: What a healthy James Paxton could mean for the Mariners’ starting rotation
James Paxton and Blake Snell stood chatting near the D1 gate of Sea-Tac airport, early Monday morning, waiting to board their flight to Phoenix. Neither the mass of people waiting in the boarding area nor the swarms of snow-stranded travelers shuffling by had any idea that two of baseball’s most talented left-handed pitchers were conversing.
Then again, only diehard baseball fans might have recognized them without the required masks. And with masks? Not so much.
While they share so many similarities – left arms seemingly touched by lightning bolts, blazing fastballs, devastating breaking pitches and unhittable stuff when healthy – the juxtaposition of where they are in their careers and where they are going beyond their immediate mutual destination of the Peoria Sports Complex for COVID-19 testing is palpable.
Snell, 28, was headed to the Padres’ side of the complex as the biggest acquisition in an offseason filled with them for San Diego. When we last saw him on a mound, he was dominating the Dodgers before being prematurely pulled by Kevin Cash in Game 6 of the World Series, which the Rays would ultimately lose. With a talented young Padres team, Snell still has great seasons ahead of him with the possibility of one more big contract possibly in his future as a free agent at age 31.
Meanwhile, Paxton, 32, is returning to where it all began for him – the Mariners’ side of the complex – where much has changed in the two seasons he was gone, other than the postseason drought. It was there on March 4, 2011 when he showed up as an awkward and overwhelmed 22-year-old, having just ended a protracted holdout for a larger signing bonus after being selected in the fourth round of the 2010 draft. A whole baseball career was still ahead of him.