James Paxton is a very projectable, hard throwing collegiate lefty out of the University of Kentucky. He's a Canadian that was highly touted back in 2006, but was passed up on as teams were concerned about his elbow soreness, which turned out to be nothing but growing pains (According to BA). So as Paxton was passed up in the draft, he opted to go to Kentucky where he was seldom used as a Freshmen and than took on a large role working as a swingmen/mid-week starter as a Sophmore. As a Junior he's really put things together and is the Friday starter (ie, collegiate #1) at Kentucky.

 

The velocity on his fastball has increased from the low to mid 90's, into the mid to upper 90's as he consistently pitches in the 94 MPH range now and will throw the ocassional pitch 97. The more important thing or impressive thing is the action Paxton gets as his fastball shows good sink and movement. He also features what is a good and his second pitch is a very slurvy curve-ball, but Paxton features a decent change-up and his pitching coach said he's been developing a tighter curve to go with the slower slurvy curve.

 

As a whole this is a guy that is climbing draft boards and at 6-4 he has the nice frame you look for in a pitcher. A lefty with this type of stuff is rare in a system and if he can develop his secondary pitches your talking about a potential high impact arm from the left side and an exception value at the 23rd pick.

 

With it looking like Brothers won't be there, Paxton is starting to become my guy, although there is definately a shot that he'll be gone as well, but most boards have him projected between 18 and 25. BA's first mock draft had him going to the Jays at #20.

You make him sound a lot like Aaron Poreda.

You make him sound a lot like Aaron Poreda.

Similar fastballs, but this guy has a much better feel for his breaking stuff and in general has far better and far more projectable secondary stuff. He also has a much more fluid delivery, which is why I think he's got a better shot at making it as a starter. I just don't consider Poreda a starting pitching prospect but I keep hoping that secondary stuff gets there and it might not takes as much as expected since he does get great sink on his fastball.

I don't know, for some reason I have a bad feeling about him. While the upside is there, he seems to have a long way to go. His command is a question mark, only has two pitches right now, and is having a really poor year this year (ERA almost 6 this year in less than 80 IP).

Oops, just read he's a Boras client. Might as well scratch him off. One of these days, I'm gonna try and come up with a list of all the top prospects with Boras.

Paxton might be my second favorite lefty in the draft. It's a shame he's a Boras client, because that slider-fastball combo is lethal.