Blue Jays Opposing Pitcher Report: James Paxton

Tuesday, May 8, the Blue Jays oppose the Seattle Mariners for a cross-continent American League match-up. The Mariners send Canadian James Paxton to the mound while the Blue Jays call Marcus Stroman’s number.

Tuesday’s match-up will be just the fourth time James Paxton has pitched against the Blue Jays in Toronto. The last start made in his native country was made July 22, 2016—a game in which he allowed one earned run over seven great innings.

Paxton had a great year last year but had a rocky start to this year. Currently the Canadian holds a 1-1 record and 4.19 ERA in 38 2/3 innings pitched. Cumulatively, he is worth a decent 0.9 WAR for the Mariners. The ERA is misleading, though. Paxton allowed six earned runs in his first start. However, over his next six starts, Paxton allowed more than 2 earned runs just once.

Paxton features a wide array of pitch offerings—a fastball, sinker, cutter, knuckle curve, and an occasional change-up. He works off of the fastball and then utilizes his other pitches intermittently around the heater.

Paxton has used the fastball 56.4% of the time this year. It averages a good velocity of 95.5 mph and has been worth a good 2.9 wFB. Through the season Paxton’s fastball has become more, and more dangerous. From March to May, the BAA the fastball has dropped from .294 in March, to .211 in April, and finally to .118 in May.

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His second most used pitch, the cutter, has had the opposite effect. The B.C. native allowed no hits off his cutter in March. However, in April, the batting average against his cutter has jumped to .455 and progressed to .500 in May. Despite this, Paxton still utilizes the cutter 19.1% of the time while averaging a velocity of 88.7 mph.

Paxton’s knuckle curve has good movement and is used 14.8% of the time. The pitch has produced some ugly swings over the years. The curve can either be thrown for a strike in the zone or bounced on the plate for a swing-and-miss strike.

The sinker and change-up complete the big lefty’s offerings. Paxton seldom uses the changeup, at just 0.8%. He uses the sinker 8.4% of the time. A common groundball pitch, the sinker produced groundballs 75% of the time in April. A groundball pitch is important for a pitcher that holds a low groundball rate of 28.1%.

Paxton doesn’t worry about groundball percentage, though. The southpaw is excellent at producing strikeouts. In fact, James Paxton leads the majors with an incredible K/9 of 13.97. In his last start against Oakland, Paxton struck out an incredible 16 batters over seven innings pitched—a record high strikeout total for a Canadian-born pitcher.

However, strikeouts produce deep counts and high pitch totals. Deep counts increase the likelihood of walks, which Paxton has struggled with this year. Currently, he has allowed 16 free passes over his 38 2/3 innings, for a high BB9 of 3.72.

Eleven batters on the Blue Jays current 25-man roster have faced Paxton before, for mostly good results. Josh Donaldson leads the way with six hits in 15 at-bats and a crazy 1.133 OPS. The only hitters that have had issues with Paxton, over reasonable sample sizes, are Kendrys Morales and Kevin Pillar. Morales has just one single in seven at-bats against Paxton. Pillar has just 2 hits in nine at-bats against Paxton, however, both of these hits were doubles.

Next: Blue Jays: Reading into outfield comments from Gibbons

Despite looking like a bad match-up on paper for the Blue Jays, past number suggests otherwise. The Blue Jays should take advantage of the match-up and start the Mariners series with a win. However, if they do work out a win, it will likely be accompanied by a high strikeout total.