3. James Pazos
Pazos is known as the mustached-reliever that was acquired in the Jean Segura trade this offseason. The 27-year-old looks like a great acquisition at first, but there are some underlying concerns that come with. Ultimately, Pazos has options and is also likely to start the season in AAA, despite already showing that he can perform in the MLB. He’s shown his upside in the 100+ innings that he’s pitched for Seattle in the past 2 seasons, but he is projected for only a 3.89 ERA and a 4.02 FIP by Steamer. Additionally, Pazos had a poor 4.66 DRA in 2018.
Ultimately Pazos has performed well, to the tune of a sub-4 ERA in both full seasons of his career. In 2017, he posted a very high 12.2 whiff rate. However, in 2018 that fell to a below average 9.4%. This past season Pazos began to become more of a one-pitch pitcher, throwing his fastball 92% of the time. That didn’t seem to work well, as his ability to miss bats hurt him down the stretch. Pazos also was not able to get left-handed batters out any better than right-handed batters, so he didn’t show that he truly fits into the left-handed reliever role. The big concern regarding how Pazos will perform next season is that his velocity clearly diminished by the end of 2018.
Since the clear drop in velocity on 6/22, Pazos had a 5.63 FIP, which he outperformed with a 3.71 ERA. This shows that if he cannot regain this velocity, he likely won’t contribute much to the team in 2019. However, because he is still young and the drop in velocity was so sudden, it seems more likely that he was pitching through an injury and will recover. If he does recover and match the 2.45 ERA and 2.55 FIP from before 6/22, then the Phillies have their surefire top left-handed reliever, with a few years of control as well.
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