Grading Blake Snell to Giants and the Winners and Losers of Massive Signing
At long last, the only two-time Cy Young Award winner left standing on MLB's free-agent market has found a home.
Blake Snell is headed north from San Diego to the Bay Area to join the San Francisco Giants, with Jon Heyman of the New York Post first reporting on Monday that the two sides had agreed to a two-year, $62 million contract that contains an opt-out after 2024.
Thus ends a surprisingly long stay on the open market for the 31-year-old left-hander, and to call the situation complicated would be underselling it.
So, let's put on a full-court press in breaking this thing down by both grading the Snell signing and assessing the accompanying winners and losers.
Grading the Snell Signing
1 of 7
Grade: A
We can talk all day about what Snell doesn't bring to the table, with the short version being that he's lacking in reliability.
Because of time spent on the injured list in 2018, 2019, 2021 and 2022, he's made north of 30 starts in a season only twice in eight years. He's also notoriously not a control artist. He's averaged 4.1 walks per nine innings for his career and is coming off a 2023 season in which he led all pitchers with 99 free passes.
When it comes down to it, though, the Giants have gotten one of the best pitchers in MLB on only the league's 98th-biggest active contract.
It's a steal just to this extent, and it'll be that much more of a steal if Snell has more of what he had to offer in his two Cy Young-winning seasons. He was close to unhittable in both, finishing 2018 with a 1.89 ERA and last year with a 2.25 ERA next to 11.7 strikeouts per nine innings and a .579 OPS allowed.
Meanwhile, the periphery costs of this deal for the Giants aren't even that bad.
Having already surrendered a second-round pick in the 2024 draft via the Matt Chapman signing, they are only losing a third-round pick plus $500,000 from their international bonus pool with the Snell deal.
Their luxury-tax payroll is projected at $256.5 million, or just shy of the $257 million secondary threshold for penalties.
Winner: San Francisco Giants
2 of 7
As if getting a good deal on Snell wasn't good enough, there's also what this means for the Giants' 2023-24 offseason and outlook for the coming campaign.
They're now firmly among the offseason's big winners, as Snell is the final piece of a haul otherwise consisting of Chapman, Jorge Soler, Jung Hoo Lee, Jordan Hicks and a fellow Cy Young Award winner in Robbie Ray. And also Bob Melvin in the manager's chair.
The result for now is about a $20 million increase on the Giants' Opening Day payroll from 2023, which in itself is a win for fans who had been pining for the front office to make more of an effort after back-to-back mediocre seasons.
San Francisco's playoff odds have benefited accordingly, with FanGraphs and Baseball Prospectus both putting its chances of playing October baseball in the 40 percentage range. Not a slam dunk, maybe, but well above Lloyd Christmas territory.
Playoff baseball or no playoff baseball, the sheer watchability of the Giants should be a heck of a lot better this year than it was in 2023.
Whereas last year's team was insultingly boring, this one has legit offensive firepower in support of a pitching staff headed by the top two finishers in the 2023 National League Cy Young Award voting.
Had Snell and Logan Webb been teammates, they would have combined for a 2.80 ERA over 396 innings.
Loser: Blake Snell
3 of 7
Alas, one feels for Snell in all this.
A mere two-year, $62 million deal is not what he had in mind when his free-agent odyssey began. According to Bob Nightengale of USA Today, he was aiming as high as nine years, $270 million at one point. That would have made him the highest-paid lefty in history
Instead, he's settled for less than a quarter of that.
It's hard not to wonder if this was inevitable, and not just because of Snell's aforementioned flaws. There were also unfortunate circumstances beyond his control, as the regional sports network collapse had an overall chilling effect on free-agent spending.
Now the best hope for Snell's bank account involves him having another monster season and using his opt-out to reenter the market. But this is where there are no guarantees.
Even if the volatility of his star power doesn't become apparent again in 2024, he would still be hitting the market a year older at 32. Teams could again give him a wide berth just on that account, which is to say nothing of how he would also be sharing the market with a fellow Cy Young Award winner in his prime: Corbin Burnes.
As such, Snell's last best chance at truly big money may have already come and gone.
Winner: Also Blake Snell
4 of 7
It's not all bad for Snell, though.
His re-entry on the market off another monster year may not be any kind of guaranteed thing, but at least his new surroundings don't figure to hold him back. Oracle Park is as pitcher-friendly as stadiums come, specifically where home runs are concerned.
Snell should know all about it. He's made four career starts in San Francisco and it's fair to say they've gone well. He's posted a 1.59 ERA across 22.2 innings, with only 12 hits allowed against 31 strikeouts.
The Giants could also be Snell's ticket to something he didn't get to do with the San Diego Padres last year, which is boost his profile in October. That doesn't always matter in free agency, but Anthony Rendon and Stephen Strasburg are two guys who'll vouch that it can.
And if nothing else, staying in the NL West means Snell will get to stick it to the Padres.
It was primarily because of payroll constraints that they seemingly never made any real attempt to re-sign him, but nobody ever likes to have doors close on them. Especially, of course, when the door in question gets opened again to let your replacement in.
Losers: Scott Boras and Jordan Montgomery
5 of 7
And now for the name you've all been waiting for: Scott Boras.
There's a reason he's revered as the best agent in the business, but the Snell contract is merely the latest hit Boras has taken in what's been a brutal offseason.
Here's a breakdown courtesy of Talkin' Baseball:
Snell, Chapman and Cody Bellinger had been projected by MLB Trade Rumors to sign contracts consisting of 25 total years and $624 million in total dollars. Those numbers and what they've actually signed for—i.e., eight years, $196 million—are not the same.
Naturally, none of this bodes well for the big Boras client still standing: Jordan Montgomery.
According to Heyman, the lefty still had a seven-year deal in mind as recently as March 8. There was no way that was happening then, much less now that a prospective suitor is spoken for in the wake of the Giants signing Snell.
My best guess on Montgomery is that he'll also have to place his big-earning hopes in a post-2024 opt-out as part of a much shorter deal. And probably for less guaranteed money than Snell got, at that.
Winner: NL West Star Power
6 of 7
Let's now play a sad trombone in the direction of Arizona Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo, whose wish was not granted.
This, as relayed by Nightengale, was that star players would stop finding their way to the NL West:
This indeed tracks with the recent migration patterns. We've already covered the Giants' haul, and here's a reminder on the new additions on the Diamondbacks, Padres and Los Angeles Dodgers in case anyone needs it:
- Dodgers: DH/RHP Shohei Ohtani, RHP Yoshinobu Yamamoto, RHP Tyler Glasnow, LF Teoscar Hernández, LHP James Paxton
- Diamondbacks: LHP Eduardo Rodriguez, 3B Eugenio Suárez, DH Joc Pederson
- Padres: RHP Dylan Cease, RHP Michael King
Granted, it shouldn't be forgotten that Juan Soto left the NL West this winter. Unless Denverites prefer to just bask in the glow of the Nuggets, nor should it be overlooked that the Colorado Rockies are facing (so sorry about this) a rocky season.
All the same, the NL West is looking mighty good heading into 2024. It's at least surpassed the NL East as the best top-to-bottom division in the Senior Circuit, and it might even be on par with the American League East as the best in all of MLB.
In other words, it's the place to look if you want to see some good baseball this season.
Losers: San Diego Padres and Snell's Other Suitors
7 of 7
The Giants signing Snell obviously has implications for every team in the NL West, but none more so than the Padres.
That their former ace jumped ship to a rival stings just in general, and it's arguably changed the pecking order within the division. The Padres had moved ahead of the Giants with the Cease trade. Now, it's the other way around again.
The bright side is that San Diego at least got a draft pick out of the Snell deal, but that's sort of like getting a free frogurt with your cursed doll.
Even crankier than the Padres, meanwhile, should be the other teams that were on Snell before the Giants got him. Namely, the Houston Astros, Los Angeles Angels and New York Yankees.
For luxury-tax reasons, the Yankees signing Snell was never likely after they inked Marcus Stroman in January. But if they had known then that being patient would have gotten them a huge discount on Snell, one has to assume they would have done so. And if they had signed him, Gerrit Cole's elbow injury wouldn't hit as hard as it does right now.
As for the Astros and Angels, the only question to ask is: Really, you guys couldn't beat two years and $62 million?
Stats courtesy of Baseball Reference, FanGraphs and Baseball Savant.
.jpg?w=600 "Titans President Steps Down")
.jpg?w=600 "Best NFL Free Agents")