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Suffice it to say that I really, really doubt your proposition that Paxton / Franklin are as valuable as "guy who is valued more highly than Paxton in most circles" and "MiLB player of the year". There is a huge gap between the ~#3 overall prospect (Myers) and the ~#30 (Franklin), even if you ignore the Paxton-Odorizzi difference or skew it slightly in James' favor. I don't have any evidence that GMs hold Paxton & Franklin in lower esteem than Myers & Odorizzi, other than Jack Z repeatedly saying he's getting offers of pennies on the dollar for them this offseason. I just know that most analysts think there's an enormous difference. I think if you walk up to the average analyst and say "value Paxton and Franklin and a percentage of Myers and Odorizzi", you're feeling good if someone says "75%". I see no evidence that GMs think differently.
Dickey is not demonstrably better than Shields? Come on, man. Dickey has a way better ERA+ than Shields in two of the last three years. He has a better FIP than Dickey in two of the last three years. By fWAR Dickey's been better in two of the last three years--but we can't trust fWAR in evaluating Dickey, because knuckleballers have a strong tendency to generate weak contact and thus outperform their FIP. Over the last three years of bWAR (which uses RA instead of FIP and is thus better at evaluating Dickey) Dickey's been better by SEVEN WHOLE WINS, 12.1 to 5.1. The only year of the last three in which Shields was more valuable than Dickey, it was pretty close. Dickey IS demonstrably more effective than Shields. He is demonstrably a LOT more effective than Shields.
The Royals adding Shields, Davis, Santana, Guthrie, and natural growth doesn't take them from 72 to 85+ because Santana is very bad, Davis is also bad, and Guthrie is mediocre. And consider what they gave up to do that--their starting RF for next year and a pretty darn good pitching prospect. Even in a vacuum, adding Shields/Davis/Santana/Guthrie to a team gives that team maybe 7 or eight extra wins. Except to do it they traded away their probably-3-WAR right fielder and replaced him with a probably-replacement-level-scrub. Plus Odorizzi is likely better than three of those four guys. When you look at the net plus from their offseason acquisitions, they've added maybe four wins and the other 14 to reach 90 ALL have to come from internal improvement. That's not where you want to be.
On the other hand, Paxton and Franklin would contribute far less to the 2013 Mariners than Myers and Odorizzi would've to the 2013 Royals. It's Myers-scrub + Odorizzi-scrub vs. Paxton-Vargas and Franklin-Ryan, and for the latter two it probably would've been only a half-season. Even if Myers and Odorizzi are only league average, in order for our guys to have as much impact for us as their guys would've had for them in 2013, they basically would've had to be immediate all-stars.
The Paxton+Franklin for Dickey proposal is not very similar to the Shields trade. It is a considerably lesser package to gibe up for a considerably greater return.