The Yankees acquired Mariners LHP James Paxton for three prospects on Monday, the team announced.
Yankees top prospect Justus Sheffield is among the players New York will give up. Outfielder Dom Thompson-Williams and RHP Erik Swanson have also been traded.
Paxton, 30, went 11-6 with a 3.76 ERA in 28 starts for the Mariners this season and is under team control for the next two seasons.
- The Yankees got "lucky" another team was this interested in Justus Sheffield
- SNY (@SNYtv) November 19, 2018
- The Yankees will probably go after Patrick Corbin next@martinonyc with his instant takeaways from the James Paxton trade: pic.twitter.com/cBfkTkSGQN
Sheffield, 22, was New York's No. 1 prospect and was ranked among the top 100 prospects by Baseball America, MLB.com and Baseball Prospectus. He went 7-6 with a 2.48 ERA in 25 games (20 starts) with Double-A Trenton and Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre this year.
Yankees GM Brian Cashman said he and the Mariners had been working on a trade for about a month, but Seattle wouldn't do the trade if Sheffield wasn't involved, according to MLB.com's Bryan Hoch.
Paxton's name had also surfaced in rumors with the Astros, however Houston's unwillingness to include pitching prospect Forrest Whitley in a deal led the Mariners to a deal with New York, according to Fox Sports' Jon Morosi.
The other two prospects Seattle received were Thompson-Williams, 23, who hit .299 with 22 home runs and 74 RBIs in 100 games for Low-A Charleston and High-A Tampa in 2018, and Swanson, 25, who went 8-2 with a 2.66 ERA in 24 games (22 starts) in the minors last season, spending most of his time with Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.
Since debuting in 2013, Paxton is 41-26 with a 3.42 ERA with 617 strikeouts in 582 1/3 innings. He has had success against the last two World Series champions in his career.
Paxton is 7-3 with a 2.89 ERA in 12 career starts against the Astros, going 4-0 with a 2.05 ERA in four starts in 2018. Against the Red Sox, Paxton is 2-0 with a 2.49 ERA in four starts, though he allowed six runs and seven hits in 2 1/3 innings in his lone start against Boston in 2018.