If Soroka weren't coming off a serious injury and had we gotten a longer look at Anderson last year, I might agree with that. But at the moment, we need to consider that Soroka may not be available to start the season and may not be quite as affective as he comes back, and it's entirely possible that Anderson might get slapped around as teams get more looks at him. As such, we needed 2 quality starting pitchers this off-season.
Now you could argue that Paxton signed cheaper and is a similar valued pitcher, but you'd also have to realize that we'd have had to offer more money than the 8 million Seattle offered. And considering he is originally from a town around Vancouver, it's possible he just wanted to pitch closer to home assuming the money was similar, meaning we likely would have had to offer him more than 10 million anyways.
The only other reliable starters making less money than Smyly are Quintana and Minor. Everyone else is a complete lottery ticket.
I will say that I'm interested to see what Jake Odorizzi and Mike Leak eventually sign for. They don't have the upside Smyly has, but they would have been quite capable as a No. 4 pitcher for us. They were two I guys I was pretty high on earlier in the off-season, along with Quintana.