Gordon Gross skims over the Paxton series and whacks Dr. D's underhand scoop shot into the cheap seats:

It took Kershaw 4 years in the bigs (granted, 4 young years) to become the Cy Young bundle of C-4 that he's become. His first 3 years?

1: 9 hits, 8.5 K, 4.5 BB per 9
2: 6.5 hits, 9.5 K, 5 BB per 9
3: 7 hits, 9.5 K, 3.5 BB per 9

Years 4 and 5 are where he took off:
4: 6.5 hits, 9.5K, 2 BB per 9
5: 6.5 hits, 9 K, 2.5 BB per 9

Guys with good heat and a good breaker can survive wildness, though - his year 2 and year 3 returns were nothing to sneeze at (ERA+ of 143 and 133 those years).

..................

You wanna see what Paxton's first two years in the system have been?

1: 7 hits, 12.5 K, 4 BB per 9
2: 8 hits, 9 K, 4.5 BB per 9

Paxton's HR rates are miniscule. He simply can't be squared up, and he'll never pipe you an easy one even when his curve isn't dropping in.

And pitchers with excessive heat and repeatable mechanics tend to get it figured out - it just may require patience.

..................

Randy Johnson took until year 5 to become the HOF version of himself, but his ERAs were in the 3s from year 2 on. Kershaw's ERAs were great in year 2 and beyond even though he wasn't TOTALLY dominant. Brandon Morrow (a righty, but with a similar arm) took until year 6... but Brandon WILL pipe you a HR ball, and his higher ERAs reflect his ability to be hit. When his walks came down and he couldn't be hit as easily (because he didn't have to throw hittable balls down the chute in hitter's counts) his ERA came down to where it should be.

.................

Paxton is hard to hit, for either average or power, and I expect him to carry that over to the bigs. In fact, in a league where they'll call the curveball for a strike (a notorious problem in the minors) he'll probably do better-than-expected at carrying that success over.

But if he starts off with high walks.... DON'T FREAK OUT. Price walked 4 per his first year. Bedard? 4.5. Lester 4.5, Gio Gonzalez 5+.... CJ Wilson's walked 4 per for his career, and he's done all right because he's hard to hit.

Odds are, Paxton will walk guys. As Doc said, his foot plant is inconsistent and he's compensating. When he gets it worked out the walks will magically disappear, but even WITH walks he's a TOR starter thanks to what I expect to be low hits and low HRs. Paxton is the sort of arm you deploy knowing that his first 3 years will likely be as your #2 or 3 starter, and his next 3 he may be your ace.

Which is why I don't want to give him up - he can fight a rearguard action while getting the league figured out, and then once he does... boom. And what's fun about this team is we have several pitchers who may be able to do that. We'll see how many we keep to allow them the opportunity. So far Morrow and Pineda have been moved on, and the returns haven't been what we'd hoped at this point.

I would like to see us roll out a couple of those types in the 2013 rotation, though. Felix, Iwakuma, Ramirez, Paxton, and Hultzen could be a formidable rotation with a low disaster-potential. We'd have to keep em around for that to work.

~G

The pre-1993 Randy Johnson wasn't just a guy with high walks.  He was a DISGUSTING MESS mechanically, worse mechanically than most high school kids without the slightest exaggeration.  He had no idea where the ball was going and this had a lot of positives as far as his effectiveness.  

Reading your piece, a lot of these wild lefties come to mind and I wonder even more how a pro scout could overlook them, writing Paxton off as a "career #5 starter command" guy.  This is one of your very best G, which is sayin' a lot.  Just for chuckles, check Randy's front foot in this picture ...

.

Sandy Koufax walked 5+ men at ages 23 and 24, running ERA+'s better than average.  He had a transition year at 25, and took over the league at 26.

Johann Santana walked 5+ men at 21 and 4+ men at 23, getting ahold of his mechanics in his 4th partial year in the majors.  He is a milder case statistically, but another reminder that young lefties can look awkward physically.

Bill James has a Wild Man Lefties template, in which he points out that a lot of Koufax / Big Unit types are terrible hitters, make lots of errors fielding, are just very clumsy men.  Sometimes it takes a few years for them to learn how to control their centers of gravity.  

A soft-tossing lefty?  Bill uses the "grace and balance" rule of thumb.  Jamie Moyer looked like a ballet dancer out there, could hold the top of his windup for 5 seconds like a flamingo (or a Japanese pitcher, take your pick).  This leads to the pinpoint control.  But hard-throwing lefties absolutely do not require command OR control in order to succeed.  Not the way that other pitchers do.

They don't always turn out to be superstars, of course.  A guy like Scott Kazmir might not learn to control his release point before his fastball goes.  Still, Kazmir gave his teams three-four years of All-Star performance; it's not like he was a joke.

Erik Bedard his ownself was in this mold of physically graceless, hard-throwing lefty ... man, if only he'd been healthy.

I don't know why I spaced out on this template.  Glad that Gordon didn't.

................

You could find any number of kludgy LHP's like this... thing is, Paxton is indeed miles ahead of them in terms of grace and balance.  Paxton has one specific thing to fix, the front foot, and then his mechanics are way plus.  You might recall that Randy Johnson credited this one specific thing -- the front foot -- as his turning point.  He had to be told about it several years on, by somebody outside the Mariners' organization.

.