Unit going over 100 WAR for his career and being one of the five or six greatest starters ever. As asterisked in the article.
The echo here is of super-dominant talent that was never far away from jelling. But like James said w/r/t the Unit, expecting that jell to set at any given moment, such as March 2016, is impossible.
Paxton's dream is to be a Noah Syndergaard-class freakishly unusual SP for five years, not to be Randy Johnson for twenty. Agreed.
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The last two years, could you rely on Paxton to "anchor a rotation"? No. That's a pretty high bar for the ex-Paxton, or for anybody. His lifetime ERA is 3.19, lower than Iwakuma's. Could you count on him to provide excellent contribution in view of the fact that he was in his first 200 innings? Sure.
Appreciate your holding down the other side of the argument. However, this is precisely the situation in Seattle. For Paxton, we subconsciously accept nothing less than #1 starter. It implies our own recognition of just how overwhelming his talent is, far beyond Taijuan's, for example.
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Paxton found his balance and body control in Tacoma. That's obvious. Pitcher plateaus are part of the fabric of the game and this APPEARS to be a classic plateau leap.
He might come unraveled, sure. He won't make the top 10 in James' pitcher rankings until he's shown this for 40 starts. Which is rather trite, wouldn't you say? That after he makes two All-Star games, then he's an All-Star?
If Paxton maintains these mechanics, and throws these pitches, he's a major star. Starting yesterday. That it's possible he might not, everybody agrees. Right now I'd put the chances of that around 20%.