Seattle Mariners: James Paxton
The sun is setting on Felix Hernandez’s time leading the Seattle Mariners starting rotation. King Felix may be able to string together a few strong starts in a row, but the Mariners cannot count on him to carry the workload of a staff ace at this point of his career. Seattle’s rotation was gutted by injuries all last season, and it ultimately cost them a shot at the playoffs.
For Seattle to break through and make it back to the playoffs for the first time since 2001, James Paxton will have to make through the year in one piece. The big left-hander made a career-high 24 starts in 2017 and went 12-5 with a 2.98 ERA while striking out 10.3 per nine. Paxton had only started 46 games in the big leagues over the preceding three years, so this was a big step forward for him.
Paxton has to make it through at least 30 starts for Seattle to get over the hump in a highly-competitive division. The offense is strong, but it the likes of Ariel Miranda and Marco Gonzales are making too many starts, their playoff chances are next to none.
It’s impossible to pin down why Paxton has struggled so much with injuries in his career, but he has to put it all together this year. Time is running out on the core group for the Mariners, and making the postseason in the American League gets more difficult every year.