I would probably do 2/$50 with a vesting option if Paxton would. 2/$50 is what Verlander got (pre-CBA) returning from major surgery as a 39 year old.Well, here’s where Bloom needs to earn his check. If Paxton will resign for 2/$50 plus a vesting option, we should probably do that. If Paxton (perhaps along with Duvall) will return a haul from (say) the Reds’ stacked farm system, maybe that’s the move. BTV is hardly gospel, but it doesn't buy that Paxton or even Paxton+Duvall is really bringing back an amazing package.
We can speculate about what extension he might accept or what he’d return in trade, but it’s up to the FO to actually work the phones and figure out where the market is.
Put another way, there is no middle-tier FA SP I would rather give 2/$50M to than Paxton. Not Stroman, Ryu, Morton, Pérez, Lynn, Wood, Cobb or even Scherzer. There’s Gray, Snell and Montgomery, but they don’t seem like guys we’d outbid the field for.
Plus, after the reported spurnings from Eflin and the like, the bird in the hand factor is kind of important and all that.
Ohtani aside, a few of the upper-tier guys have developed serious questions too. Urias is having a bad enough year that he may even accept a QO. Nola has taken a step back. Flaherty has been hurt and diminished. Giolito has fallen off some.