Top 11 Landing Spots for Blake Snell in MLB Free Agency
Blake Snell just became the 22nd player in MLB history to win multiple Cy Young awards, and the seventh to win at least one in each league, joining Roger Clemens, Randy Johnson, Pedro Martínez, Gaylord Perry, Roy Halladay and Max Scherzer in that exclusive club.
He also just became a free agent two weeks ago at the age of 30 and should spark quite the bidding war on the open market.
The veteran lefty led the majors with a 2.25 ERA this past season while also averaging at least 11 strikeouts per nine innings for a sixth consecutive season.
His walk rate (5.0 BB/9) in 2023 was concerning, but he has mastered the art of wriggling out of jams, boasting an 80.5 left-on-base percentage since the beginning of 2018. Among pitchers with at least 400 innings of work during that time, only Scherzer, Clayton Kershaw, Jacob deGrom and Justin Verlander have been better in that department, and not by much.
Japanese phenom Yoshinobu Yamamoto might end up signing a bigger contract in terms of total dollars because he's only 25 years old. But aside from Shohei Ohtani, Snell will likely fetch the highest salary among this year's free agents.
How high will it be, and which teams are in the mix to acquire his services? Let's discuss.
The Market for Blake Snell
1 of 12
MLB Trade Rumors Projection: Seven years, $200 million ($28.57M AAV)
ESPN Projection: Six years, $150 million ($25M AAV)
The Athletic Projection: Five years, $122 million ($24.4M AAV)
Spotrac Projection: Five years, $117.5 million ($23.5M AAV)
The first big question is the length of the contract, which I expect to be five years.
Snell has not been particularly durable throughout his career. He's logged at least 130 innings in a season only twice. And at some point, his elite strikeout rate will decline.
Teams interested in Snell will hope that like Max Scherzer, his drop-off won't happen until he's 37, but Mad Max is the exception to a lot of rules. Even Yu Darvish maintaining a 10+ K/9 through his age-34 season before starting to decline was a bit of an anomaly.
If it does end up being a six- or seven-year deal, some of those latter years would probably be club options. What's curious about the above range of projections, though, is that as the contract length decreases, so does the salary.
If ESPN's projection of $25 million per year for six years was the baseline, you'd think it would be $23-24 million per year for seven years and more like $27-28 million per year for five years since Snell's age-36 and age-37 seasons won't be nearly as valuable as the first few.
Long story short, he's probably getting around $25 million per year, maybe even $30 million annually on a five-year deal. That pretty well weeds out about half of MLB from the Snell market, as there's just no way the Cleveland Guardians, Tampa Bay Rays, Cincinnati Reds, Kansas City Royals, etc. would be willing and able to make that sort of financial commitment.
With that said, there will be plenty of serious bidders.
11. Seattle Mariners
2 of 12
Mariners fans seem to be getting annoyed with what they perceive to be false hope when we keep listing them among the candidates to land a big free agent or trade candidate.
But we must put Seattle somewhere on this list since it's Snell's hometown.
T-Mobile Park is 13 miles from where he pitched in high school. The one time that he pitched there in his big-league career, he went six shutout innings with 12 strikeouts back in 2018.
With that said, he isn't a great fit for the Mariners.
The M's already have Robbie Ray signed through 2026 and Luis Castillo signed through 2028, each at around $24 million per season. They also have Logan Gilbert, George Kirby and Bryce Miller under team control for at least another four seasons each.
Adding another expensive starting pitcher would make no sense.
They should at least do their due diligence and find out if he'd be willing to offer them some sort of a hometown discount, though.
10. St. Louis Cardinals
3 of 12
On the surface, the St. Louis Cardinals look like a logical landing spot for Snell. They definitely need help in their starting rotation, they have some room in the budget to work with, and he does have a career 1.80 ERA at Busch Stadium (albeit in only three starts).
But investing heavily in a free-agent starting pitcher has never been St. Louis' M.O.
In the past 33 years, the Cardinals have signed only nine free-agent starting pitchers who were on a different team the previous season, according to Cot's Baseball Contracts. Only two of those happened in the past 15 years, and neither Mike Leake nor Steven Matz panned out like they hoped.
It is always possible they could change course this offseason. After all, they did just slog through their first 90-loss season since 1990.
There's no time like the present to shake things up.
However, if they do break the mold and throw a ton of money at a 30-year-old starting pitcher, they'd likely prioritize Aaron Nola over Snell as the guy whom they want replacing Adam Wainwright in the rotation. The durable former Phillie would be the less risky investment for a risk-averse franchise to make.
9. New York Yankees
4 of 12
If the New York Yankees really want Snell, they'll surely put forth better than the ninth-best offer. Their current payroll (even with estimated arbitration figures factored in) is still about $40 million below where they finished this past season. And they're desperate to do something after a woefully disappointing 2023 campaign.
Here's the thing, though: I'm not sure they really want Snell.
For starters, he has terrible career numbers at Yankee Stadium. Granted, that's in part because he was routinely facing a highly compensated, star-studded Yankees lineup, but we're talking a 5.77 ERA and 11 home runs allowed in 12 career starts there.
The Yankees also invested heavily in a starting pitcher with durability question marks last offseason, and that long-term relationship with Carlos Rodón has gotten out to a horrific start. Because of that, they may be reluctant to go all-in on Snell, even if there weren't other quality options on the table.
But there are other good pitchers available. If the Yankees are drumming up a $150-plus million offer for a pitcher, they'll likely at least swing big for Yoshinobu Yamamoto before even kicking the tires on Snell.
These are still the Yankees we're talking about, though. They have to be considered a candidate to sign any big-name free agent. However, this just feels like an atypical case where we don't need to have them in the top five.
8. Philadelphia Phillies
5 of 12
A lot of people have been saying that the Phillies might be the top candidate to sign Snell.
But why?
If they are willing to spend big on one of the best starting pitchers on this year's market, why wouldn't they just re-sign Aaron Nola, who is likely to be a little less expensive and whose medical history they know far more about?
And if they haven't been able to find the money to pay Nola—understandable with seven players slated to make at least $18 million each in 2024—where are they getting the funds to afford Snell?
MLB.com's Mark Feinsand reported last week that the Phillies "are open to the idea" of trading Nick Castellanos, who has three years and $60 million remaining on his contract. If that were to happen, acquiring Snell would become much more feasible. However, a Phillies source told ESPN's Buster Olney that they have no interest in trading Castellanos, which brings us back to square one.
To be clear, we don't anticipate the Phillies being dormant this offseason. Between Nola, Rhys Hoskins and Craig Kimbrel all hitting free agency, they should have some space in the budget. And with Zack Wheeler also hitting free agency after 2024, they need to add some pitching sooner rather than later.
If they aren't re-signing Nola, though, it's probably because they're going a bit cheaper for a Jordan Montgomery, Sonny Gray or Eduardo Rodriguez as opposed to more expensive for Snell.
7. Chicago Cubs
6 of 12
Though both Marcus Stroman and Cody Bellinger declined their player options to return to the Chicago Cubs in 2024, that money isn't exactly lying around waiting to be redistributed.
Between Dansby Swanson, Ian Happ, Nico Hoerner, Jameson Taillon, Seiya Suzuki and Kyle Hendricks, they have six returning players making a combined $40.625 million more than they did in 2023.
Even with Stroman and Bellinger coming off the books, the only reason Chicago's 2024 payroll isn't already higher than where it finished 2023 is because the Cubs only owe Jason Heyward $5 million in deferred money this season as opposed to $22 million in retained money last season.
With that said, they weren't quite one of the 10 biggest spenders in 2023. They might be looking to increase spending considerably to give new manager Craig Counsell the best chance to succeed.
While they certainly could get by in 2024 with a starting rotation of Justin Steele, Hendricks, Taillon and some combination of Javier Assad, Drew Smyly, Jordan Wicks and Hayden Wesneski in the No. 4 and No. 5 spots, adding another ace could push them over the top.
It's an even smaller sample size than most on this list, but in two career starts at Wrigley Field, Snell has a 1.80 ERA, albeit with a 1.70 WHIP. Because he normally doesn't allow many home runs, though, he'd likely do well inside those ivy-covered walls.
6. New York Mets
7 of 12
This might be five spots too high for the New York Mets, or it might be five spots too low. I honestly don't know. They are the ultimate wild card this offseason.
If they are going to put together big-time offers this winter, though, they are most likely going to do so for Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto. One is a generational talent, while the other is a 25-year-old who could be a top-of-the-rotation starter for eight or more years.
Jettisoning Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander and Mark Canha at the trade deadline suggested they aren't aggressively trying to win it all in 2024 and would only be interested in spending big on the type of player who doesn't become available every year.
With all due respect to a very good, two-time Cy Young winner, the Mets can pretty much always find a guy like Snell in free agency.
Next year alone, Corbin Burnes, Shane Bieber, Max Fried, Brandon Woodruff and Walker Buehler are all presently scheduled to reach free agency for the first time. There's also Tyler Glasnow and Zack Wheeler hitting the open market, plus possibly both Gerrit Cole and Robbie Ray if they were to opt out of the remainder of their contracts.
Basically, there's no rush to get Snell unless you're planning on him immediately becoming a key piece of your World Series puzzle. While the Mets aren't exactly punting on 2024, it doesn't seem like they are going to take anywhere near the same "World Series or Bust" mentality into next season.
5. San Diego Padres
8 of 12
If it ain't broke, why fix it?
In 43 starts at Petco Park over the past three seasons, Snell has a 2.87 ERA, a 0.83 HR/9 rate and a 12.4 K/9 ratio—compared to still impressive but not as phenomenal marks of 3.50, 0.91 and 11.2, respectively, on the road.
He's clearly comfortable in San Diego.
The Padres reportedly want to enter 2024 with a payroll about 20 percent below where it was last season. But even if they hang onto Juan Soto at a projected salary around $30 million and signed Snell for $25 million per year, they could still end up pretty close to that $200 million goal.
And if they do manage to re-sign Snell, they could always decide to trade Soto to get well under that $200 million threshold. We ranked landing spot candidates for that last week.
The Padres already have a bunch of long-term figures on the books, but Fernando Tatis Jr.'s salary doesn't really start to balloon until 2025, and Manny Machado's salary doesn't begin to increase from $17.1 million until 2026.
The Padres would have by far the highest looking-way-ahead-to-2027 payroll if they made this happen. But whatever. Go at least try to win a World Series in 2024, lest this whole spending experiment go down in history as a colossal failure.
4. Detroit Tigers
9 of 12
The Detroit Tigers are very much a dark-horse candidate in the Snell market. Let this one marinate for a minute and it's not as preposterous as you might initially think.
At long last, they are finally done paying Miguel Cabrera $30-plus million per year. They do still owe him $8 million this season for buying him out of their $30 million club option for 2024, but that alone is enough free space in the budget to make a Snell-sized splash.
Moreover, Eduardo Rodriguez opted out of the final three years and $49 million remaining on his contract, so there's another big chunk of change for them to play with.
They need to add another quality starting pitcher to replace Rodriguez in the rotation, but a Snell-Tarik Skubal one-two punch could go a long way in the wide-open AL Central.
Although they've had a bottom-half-of-the-league payroll over the past six seasons, there was a decade-long run from 2008-17 in which the Tigers were pretty consistently one of the five biggest spenders.
In addition to the room that the Tigers have just to get back up to what they spent in 2023, they might be able to even increase their payroll if they think they have a real chance in 2024—which they do if they sign Snell.
It's a long shot, but they're going to spend somewhere, right?
3. Boston Red Sox
10 of 12
Save for the St. Louis Cardinals, the Boston Red Sox allowed more runs in 2023 than any other team featured here. Eight pitchers made at least nine starts for them last season, and all eight finished the year with an ERA north of 4.00.
Moreover, they have finished dead last in the AL East in each of the past two seasons and now have a new Chief Baseball Operator with Craig Breslow replacing Chaim Bloom.
They are probably desperate to do something significant this offseason, which might make them the most likely candidate to overspend—whether in terms of salary or number of years—on Snell.
They are certainly familiar with his pitching arsenal, having faced Snell 13 times in his career. He hasn't pitched at Fenway Park since 2020, but he has a solid 3.10 ERA in 29.0 innings there, allowing just one home run (to Mookie Betts in 2017).
Adding Snell might not help the Red Sox's rotational durability issues. Over the past two seasons, the only Boston pitchers to reach that mark were Brayan Bello in 2023 and Nick Pivetta in both years, and they used Pivetta as a middle reliever for half of last season because of how poorly he pitched early in the year.
Pairing Snell with Chris Sale could be amazing if they defy the odds and both stay healthy. But the allure of having that sequence of southpaws leading the way in October makes it a risk worth taking.
2. Los Angeles Dodgers
11 of 12
Six months ago, I would've said there's no chance that the Los Angeles Dodgers bother trying to sign Blake Snell.
Knowing that they already had set themselves up last offseason to get Shohei Ohtani this offseason, it looked like they could be headed for a 2024 starting rotation of Ohtani, Clayton Kershaw, Walker Buehler, Tony Gonsolin and Dustin May.
But even if they do win the Ohtani lottery, he won't pitch in 2024. Gonsolin almost certainly won't either after undergoing Tommy John surgery in September. May is expected to be out at least until the All-Star Break after elbow surgery in July. After shoulder surgery earlier this month, Kershaw said "I am hopeful to return to play at some point next summer," and he's a free agent anyway. And after Buehler's possible September return was shut down after a few rehab starts, who knows if he'll even be fully available next season?
They do still have Bobby Miller and several other young-but-promising arms, but they will be looking to sign at least one if not several of the top starting pitchers available this offseason.
In six career starts at Dodger Stadium—against what is annually one of the most formidable lineups in the majors—Snell has a 1.80 ERA and a 12.6 K/9. Getting that sort of production as a member of the home team would be huge.
1. San Francisco Giants
12 of 12
Simply put, the Giants must make a big splash this offseason.
Would they rather have that splash be Shohei Ohtani? Absolutely.
But if (when?) Ohtani ends up signing with the Dodgers instead, are the G-Men just going to pack it in and start setting their sights on trying to sign Juan Soto next offseason? Or are they going to pivot and make a monster offer to one of the next-best players available like they did last offseason in going from Aaron Judge to Carlos Correa?
Almost certainly the latter, considering they are fresh off back-to-back seasons of painful mediocrity and aren't interested in another fourth-place finish in the NL West.
Not surprisingly, Snell has great career numbers in the cavernous confines of Oracle Park. He doesn't give up many home runs anywhere, but he has relented just one round-tripper in 22.2 career innings at San Francisco. In each of his last three starts at Oracle Park, he has gone six scoreless innings with a combined total of 26 strikeouts.
Yeah, that'll work. Especially placed alongside Logan Webb for what would instantly become maybe the best top of the rotation pairing in the majors. (With Kyle Harrison likely to take a big step forward in year No. 2 to make it a sensational trio.)
The Giants would still need to do something about the lack of star power in their lineup before we can start taking them too seriously as a candidate to win it all. But landing Snell would be a big boost for a team that is currently in the bottom half of the majors in World Series odds.
.jpg?w=600 "Raw Results & Grades 🔠")
.png?w=600 "NBA Fans Rip Pistons After Magic Go Up 3-1")
.jpg?w=600 "Pickens' Trade Ultimatum")
.png?w=600 "2027 NFL Mock Draft 🔮")
