Given his performance, it’s reasonable to think that Blake Snell should get an outrageous deal this offseason.
While we wait for people who just got back from summer vacations to make up their minds about the franchise’s immediate future, let’s look at one decision the lead baseball exec (whoever that maybe be) will have to care a lot about this offseason: pursuing Blake Snell.
In comments he made to the media yesterday (reported here by Andrew Baggarly and here by Shayna Rubin), President of Baseball Operations Farhan Zaidi said of the matter:
He’s going to go into free agency the same way he did last offseason. He wants to keep an open mind. … I think we’ll be pretty high on his list, but we’re respecting the fact that he’s going to want to play out for agency. I expect us to be part of that, but it should be very competitive with the way he’s pitched. Maybe we have a seat at the table, but it’s gonna be big table.
I’m sure there are plenty of powerful San Francisco Giants fans who are ready to move on from Snell because of his potential deal, and while I must certainly respect that these fans have had outsized influence in determining the moves the team has made over the years — remember the insistence that the team get Mark Melancon? Or ditch bullpen games? Or hire Bob Melvin? — anyone who suggests that the Giants shouldn’t hang around in free agency to pursue him are, well, wrong.
Yes, the team looks poised to have a solid rotation going into 2025 even without Snell. You don’t have to dream at all to envision a good staff featuring Webb, Ray, Birdsong, Hicks, Harrison, Black, Beck, Winn, and Roupp. You keep Snell with the group, though, and it’s formidable, and suddenly replacing Camilo Doval’s contributions or bracing for a negative regression from Ryan Walker don’t feel like looming threats. Plus, the team isn’t going to land Juan Soto and they’ll be clearing Michael Conforto’s salary — why not hold onto the known quantity?
The criticisms of Snell specifically are that he usually takes a full month to get going and that even when he’s at his peak he’s maybe a 5-6 inning pitcher who walks a lot of guys. In his 9-year career, he’s exceeded 128 innings in the regular season exactly twice: both years he won the Cy Young. And, just to make sure I didn’t miss all the negatives: the walks,
the walks
THE WALKS!!!!!!
But it’s not our money and if we have any sway, then we should demand that the Giants hang in the negotiations for as long as possible. With Oracle Park behind him, Snell has posted a career low FIP (2.42) — not even his 2018 Cy Young season of 21-5, 1.89 ERA, 0.974 WHIP performance can say that (it was 2.94) and that’s usually a better indicator of quality — thrown his first no-hitter and, therefore, his first career complete game. His walk rate of 10.5% is right in line with his career average (10.9%), but the strikeout rate — 34.7% — is a career best (career average: 30.2%).
This hasn’t been an outlier season for him — indeed, I wrote pretty early on that this was a LOST season! (lol me) — as much as it has been a clear elevation in his status since moving over to the NL. Since becoming a Padre in 2021, he’s accumulated 13 fWAR in value and in 540.2 IP (103 starts) has a 3.15 ERA (3.18 FIP) with a 32% strikeout rate and 11.7% walk rate.
Remarkably, he and Carlos Rodón have had the same value over this stretch and they’re just 9 days apart in age. Does that make the 6-year, $162 million contract Rodón signed in the 2022-2023 offseason the floor for Snell’s next contract?
Blake Snell will be opting out of the remaining year and $30 million on his deal. His average annual value (AAV) floor, then, is $30 million, which means a 6-year deal begins at $180 million, suddenly putting $200 million within reach — at least, that’s probably the thinking going on at Boras Corp. That’s $33.333 million AAV, which is really only a slight raise over the $32 million he made in year one of his Giants deal (yes, with some money deferred).
Is Blake Snell a $200 million pitcher — or maybe even a $300 million pitcher! — is the question, then, and before you say no, let’s look at how you might be wrong:
- Because the innings haven’t been excessive, he has a fairly good health track record. Most of his issues have been leg-based. Possibly because he’s a gamer, but I’m not a doctor. His 211 starts are 17th in MLB since his debut season (2016). We know why he didn’t get a full season of starts here in 2024: money.
- Since he came into the league, he’s struck out 1,368 batters. That is 10th overall in MLB, behind Max Scherzer, Gerrit Cole, Aaron Nola, Kevin Gausman, Justin Verlander, Charlie Morton, Robbie Ray, Chris Sale, and (cough) Patrick Corbin. Of this bunch, only Charlie Morton has missed out on the long-term nine-figure deal; but since 2016 anyway, he’s still made $128 million through various shorter-term contracts.
- In the history of Major League Baseball, just 22 pitchers have won multiple Cy Youngs. Right now, his 2 Cy Youngs put him in an 11-way tie with Jacob deGrom, Corey Kluber, Roy Halladay, Tim Lincecum, Johan Santana, Tom Glavine, Bret Saberhagen, Gaylord Perry, Bob Gibson, and Denny McClain; and of the total group, he’s 1 of only 7 left-handed pitchers: Santana, Glavine, Steve Carlton, Clayton Kershaw, Sandy Koufax, and Randy Johnson.
You better believe I’m putting him in an historical context because there’s enough in his performance to suggest that he could be special deep into his thirties. I’ve said three names in this group I feel compelled to compare him to; the first is, of course, Patrick Corbin, whose 6-year deal with the Nationals that he signed ahead of the 2019 season is nearly a worst-case scenario for long-term pitching contracts. It’s not entirely because he (1) made every start and (2) was great in year 1 of the deal (4.7 fWAR). After that: 4.6 fWAR on 739.1 innings of 5.61 ERA ball (4.91 FIP). Literally, the moment he turned 30 he lost all value.
If you fear there’s a Patrick Corbin in Blake Snell, I say fear not. If you compare their first 6 seasons, they’re different players already. Patrick Corbin came as close to 5th in Cy Young voting (age-28 season) and 11th (age-29 season) and he was around 9-10% better than the league average starter whereas Snell has reliably been (at least) 20% better.
The second comparison is Johan Santana, who had two Cy Young Awards under his belt before he turned 30. From 21-29 he pitched 1,543 innings and had a 3.11 ERA (3.34 FIP). And once he turned 30, it went quickly. Ages 30-33: 482.2 IP, 3.49 ERA (3.76 FIP). Snell has thrown 929 fewer innings than Santana, and so we can again consider that his future health might be more sustainable.
Which leads to the last player I mentioned in the block above, one with whom Snell compares rather favorably.
[turns baseball cap backwards, flips chair around]
Now, it’s not a 1:1 because nobody could replicate him, but… he was a big, hard-throwing lefty who got better as he got older, who suffered from a plague of walks earlier in his career, too. They used to laugh and call him names, too, but eventually he became The Big Unit. So maybe next time you wanna make fun of Blake Snell just remember Randy Johnson.
This is already a comp Scott Boras has made… as recently as early this calendar year when his client remained unsigned. Per Jon Heyman’s reporting:
Boras likes to highlight similarities with Randy Johnson in their age 28-30 seasons (Snell has actually limited opposing hitters to a slightly lower batting average .201 to .207 and posted the higher strikeout percentage of 31.5 to 28.3), but even if he isn’t quite the Little Unit, he’s one of the most dominant pitchers in the game when he’s on. Snell led the majors in opponents’ OPS at .579 while Cole was second at .581.
Helping — or, maybe if you’re negotiating on behalf of the Giants, not helping — matters is pitching coach Bryan Price, who “yes, and’d” Boras’s point back in August after Snell’s no-hitter, telling USA Today’s Gabe Lacques:
Price casually throws out another name – Randy Johnson – in the Snell conversation, not necessarily to compare the Giant’s stuff to the 6-foot-10 Hall of Famer.
No, it’s more about career arc, how Snell was never, Price says, “a command-and-control” guy. Yet he suggests we may be witnessing a great pitcher blooming, later, into an even better and more effective weapon.
Sure enough, Johnson’s age-31 year in 1995 was perhaps his last massive leap, winning his first Cy Young and striking out 294 batters while posting career-bests in ERA (2.48) and WHIP (1.05).
“And now Blake is in this period of time, doing some of the things Randy Johnson did when he really figured out in Seattle and Houston and Arizona – the combination of unbelievable stuff with elite command,” says Price.
“If Blake maintains that, he’ll pitch another 10 years at the top of the business.”
A quick statistical comp really helps make the comparison sound less preposterous:
Randy Johnson through age 31 season:
1,459.2 IP
10 K/9
4.7 BB/9
0.7 HR/9
121 ERA+
Blake Snell through age 31 season:
1,096.2 IP
11.2 K/9
4.1 BB/9
0.9 HR/9
128 ERA+
So, I think it’s a fair question to ask: is Blake Snell the Millenial Randy Johnson? And if that’s the case, and you could project someone who might perform within the ballpark of a Randy Johnson, what would you pay to secure him?
Boras sought 9 years and $270 million for him in the offseason. Times have changed so much that we might be able to recontextualize Blake Snell’s performance to the modern game, but we can’t change what we know about risk. Yes, the Giants can get insurance on some or all of that contract, they could even schedule deferments like they did with Snell this year, but it just doesn’t make sense to commit to a pitcher for 8 or 9 years — not even I’m into that. There’s also the point that teams had a chance to get Snell coming off a Cy Young season and declined to participate in the pursuit given the ask.
6 years might be the upper bound, especially for the Giants and especially if Farhan Zaidi’s still running baseball operations. But that’s also the type of deal that the ownership group has wanted to avoid. I think the Johnny Cueto and Jeff Samardzija deals still sting, which is a shame because Jeff Samardzija isn’t in the same league as either and Snell is better and healthier (arm-wise) than Cueto was through his age-31 season while also having far less wear and tear on the arm (Cueto through age-31: 1,781.1 IP, 122 ERA+).
If Boras sees him as a $30 million year pitcher and he was paid $30+ million to pitch this season and he pitched like a $30 million pitcher, then he’s a $30 million pitcher when it comes to negotiations this offseason. 8-9 years is wild and a non-starter as far as I’m concerned, but as the years go down the AAV would need to go up. So, take your pick:
.