Seattle Mariners: 3 reasons why bringing back James Paxton makes sense

He can help this young team try to win now

Mariners General Manager Jerry Dipoto has made it seem like the Mariners will try to go for it in 2021 while working on the rebuild. So, as the lineup seems to be set for the future with a wealth of outfield and infield prospects, and the pitching being what will hold Seattle back from competing next year, why not go after a temporary problem solver while the pitching prospects work their way through the minors.

In a perfect world, the Mariners starting rotation in a few years will be 5 of the following: Marco Gonzales, Logan Gilbert, Emerson Hancock, George Kirby, Justus Sheffield, Yusei Kikuchi, and Justin Dunn. However, only four of them have pitched in the majors and Kikuchi had an ERA over 5.00 once again while Justin Dunn had a sub 100 ERA+ (100 is the MLB average) and his baseball savant page is terrifyingly bad.

So while Seattle waits on some of the younger pitchers to make their way to the bigs in a couple of years, a rotation of Gonzales, Sheffield, Kikuchi, Gilbert, and Paxton could be a playoff quality rotation for 2021, and one of the best in the league for 2022.