The reigning NL Cy Young award winner Blake Snell has finally signed a contract just days before the start of the regular season. According to Jeff Passan of ESPN, Snell's deal with the San Francisco Giants is for two years and $62 million, with a player opt-out after the 2024 season.
The deal is in stark contrast with what many expected the left-hander to sign for. At the beginning of the offseason, MLB Trade Rumors projected that he'd earn a deal worth 7 years and $200 million. And earlier this winter, there were reports that Snell and his agent Scott Boras were asking in the range of 9 years and $270 million.
The New York Yankees had reportedly offered Snell a contract worth somewhere in the range of 6 years and $150 million a couple months ago, but Snell apparently turned down the offer and the Yankees pulled it off the table.
If there's any truth to those reports, one has to believe that Snell will be a bit disappointed in this outcome. Maybe $150 million wasn't quite what he wanted, but it's a lot closer than what he ended up getting.
It's one thing for a player to bet on himself, but Snell has proven that he can be a top-tier pitcher. He's now won both the NL and AL Cy Young awards, winning the latter back in 2018 with the Tampa Bay Rays. He has a career 3.20 ERA and despite only posting two complete seasons to this point, still averages 130 innings per year.
Now maybe that's not the level of production teams are looking for when signing top-dollar free agent pitchers, but the Dodgers just gave Tyler Glasnow a bit more than $135 million. Glasnow has about half the career innings Snell does, along with a worse career ERA and FIP and roughly the same K/BB rates.
Maybe Scott Boras misread the market for Snell and some of his other clients. But when the league as a whole has nearly cut free agent spending in half compared to 2023, things start to seem a bit suspicious. We'll see what happens with Jordan Montgomery when he eventually signs, but these most recent Scott Boras client contracts feel a bit off.
If Snell is healthy, he has the potential to be a monster in Oracle Park. That's far from certain, but this signing has the potential to be a pretty big win for the Giants. Athletics fans will just have to watch from across the Bay and imagine what it's like to actually free agents of this caliber. An unfortunate reality for a fan of a team owned by the miserable John Fisher.