Left-hander Blake Snell has exercised the opt-out provision in his contract and is now a free agent. Andrew Baggarly of The Athletic was among those to relay the news on X.
The news is not at all surprising. Snell was a free agent a year ago and didn’t find the contract he was seeking, despite the fact that he was coming off a Cy Young campaign in 2023.
He eventually signed with the Giants on a two-year pact with a $62MM guarantee. That came in the form of a $15MM salary and $17MM signing bonus for 2024, with a $30MM salary for 2025 if Snell stayed.
The opt-out after the first year was clearly there to give Snell a chance to take another shot at free agency if he could stay healthy and engineer another strong season in 2024.
For a while, it seemed like that wasn’t going to come to pass. Perhaps due to the fact that he didn’t sign until the middle of March and had a delayed spring training, he stumbled out of the gate in 2024 and also suffered a few injuries. At the end of June, he was on the injured list for the second time, the first one labeled as a left adductor strain and the second as a left groin strain. He had a 9.51 earned run average in the six starts he was able to make.
But he came back shortly after that and was completely dominant the rest of the way. He posted a 1.23 ERA in his final 14 starts of the year. His 10% walk rate was a tad high but he struck out 38.1% of batters faced.
Snell has had a few injury absences over the years but has continually demonstrated himself to be one of the best pitchers on the planet when on the mound. From 2018 until the present day, he has a 3.03 ERA and 32.1% strikeout rate, both of which are top ten numbers among qualified starters for that stretch. Among pitchers with at least 250 innings pitched over the past two years, only Tarik Skubal has a lower ERA than Snell’s 2.57 mark. Snell’s 32.7% strikeout rate in that time is also second best, a hair below Tyler Glasnow’s 32.8% rate.
Given that elite performance, it was widely expected that Snell would return to free agency in the hopes of a finding a more robust market this time around. He will be one of the top starting pitchers available alongside Corbin Burnes, Max Fried and Jack Flaherty. Snell is leaving $30MM on the table but should be able to blow past that with a nine-figure deal of some kind.
Blake Snell and Free agency is always a good idea.
Probably wants to play in a safer city.
Good luck Snellzilla!
Snell, Burnes, Soto, Alonso, etc……Same stall tactics from Boras or adjust from last offseason?
None will sign until April/May
I predict Snell and Burnes will both sign by March 1st.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they sign at the winter meetings
As to the pitchers, I agree
I would be surprised if both are not signed at or around the Winter Meetings.
welcome to the Red Sox Blake.
I pray not
No thank you. We don’t sign Boras guys anyway, so terrible prediction
While the Mariners will have a 2nd chance for a local , the better bet might be Blake Snell slotting into the Dodgers rotation
Please no. No boras clients.
I think Friedman is going to lay off the high-priced pitching IR candidates for a bit. And I think Snell is about due for TJS.
Dodgers are not Boras suitors…. Not unless Snell goes short-term, high-AAV again. And even then, they may ask him to defer some of it (depending on plans) and Boras will advise against it.
The Dodgers FO is smart… they won’t sign Boras clients on his terms.
If only the Yankees would pay attention to what the Dodgers are doing.
If only they would…
The only Boras client the Yankees should be aggressively pursuing is Juan Soto. They don’t any other of his clients, looking at Pete Alonso here…
Yankees should get some coach to teach them fielding techniques and how to hustle out plays
Fundamentals, Data… fundamentals. Unbelievable!
The Dodgers have said they will be in on Soto, a Boras client.
angels sign him
Moreno is allergic to Boras clients.
Moreno is allergic to winning
Moreno is allergic.
Allergies are allergic to Moreno.
Muhammad Ali “I make medicine feel bad.” From Rumble to the Jungle era.
Rendon is a Boras client…
The one thing we can be absolutely sure of is that Arte is not going to give a long term deal to a pitcher. the Angels will not be in the bidding for Snell.
It’s time to come back home to Seattle with a hometown discount. Mariners can trade one of their SP for a bat.
Hometown discounts went out with Happy Hooligan and The Katzenjammer Kids. Now it’s all greed.
He’s a Boras client, discount is not in his sales pitch.
That 6/180 hometown discount coming up.
Orioles 3/80
Hard pass. He is way too inconsistent to give a long term deal to. I wouldn’t mind if the Mets signed him but he wouldn’t be my first choice
Hilariously stupid not trading him, or putting him on waivers at the end of August like they did with all their other pending free agents. And don’t try it with “ThEy WaNt To ReSiGn HiM !”
The other free agents you speak of don’t sell tickets. Took my dad to one of his last games just so we could snell in action. Sadly it ended after 50 pitches in the first! We were happy to see him regardless he was on a tear just not the game we saw.
If you do the exact opposite of what casual fans want you to do 99% of the time you will end up making the correct move.
More than just casual fans….
“Listen to the fans and you’ll be sitting with them”.
– Paul Brown
Yet another reason we are gleeful that Farhan is gone.
Was honestly unlike Farhan to keep the one “good” pending FA when he put all the other guys on waivers. He strikes me as a strict analytics type.
no one offered anything worth taking – they were kind of stuck either seeing if they could make a run or getting a bunch of low level minor league guys
Anything would have been better than paying him $7m to pitch in a bunch of meaningless games and then leave for nothing. Literally. Anything. Giants brass clearly didn’t think they could make a run seeing as they put all the other pending free agents on waivers. They didn’t even get “low level minor league guys” for those dudes lmfao.
Fernando Ringworm Jr.;
It’s never one or two players.
The objective is to put a balanced team together to give the manager numerous ways to win a game depending on the opponent, the park, the weather, etc.
Farhan kept trying to bring in one or two big names thinking that would work. It seldom does. Yankees got to the WS this year though. Of course, having the 2nd highest team payroll in MLB helped. $50-some million more than the Dodgers that beat their behinds in the Series.
Not sure what that has to do with my comment. I think that Farhan should have put all the pending FA’s on waivers or none of them. He shouldn’t have kept only Snell because “we have to put butts in the seats” or because “we want to sign him beyond 2024.” Like, last year I get why the Angels didn’t put Ohtani on waivers with all the other pending FA’s because he was QO eligible but Snell was not. If I’m Snell I’m honestly pretty pissed they didn’t let me finish out 2024 on a team that actually had a chance.
So you get nothing for him and that’s the better alternative?
Mets, 4 years $130 million with an innings based vesting option for a 5th year. Plus he has no QO attached to him.
He’s going to ask for at least guaranteed six years and more than Cole’s $36M AAV.
If he holds firm on that ask he’ll be signing another pillow contract.
If he does, he’ll still be looking for a job come March.
If Snell asks for a similar AAV to Cole, he’s delusional. They’re not even on the same playing field. 30 million is more than enough, with 5 years maybe 6.
Least surprising news of the day. Opting out was always the plan for both him and the team, which saw him as a short term fix rather than a long term investment. Think it’s unlikely that they will resign him due to the owners aversion to long term contracts for pitchers. If they were to decide to offer one I’d guess that they would be more likely to offer one to Burnes given his more consistent track record.
I still wouldn’t sign him. No thank you!
I think most teams are figuring out that short term with high dollar amounts, keeps them from paying a player ( Kershaw, Max , etc…) who simply doesn’t help the team. Win now means 2/ 75 or 3/112 with a 3rd year team option ( &7 million buyout) that everyone should be happy with! Win now philosophy
Any team wanting to sign Cnell to a short term deal would have them paying him an AAV around $43 million. A 3/130 deal at a minimum. For a team like the Dodgers or Yankees that means nearly $90 million including the CBT penalties just for 2025
Mets will grab both Snell and Burns. Resign Manaea and Severino. Sprinkle Senga in there and they have a balanced starting 5 with a young offense. Soto will likely resign with the Yankees. Can’t see them letting him go, especially crosstown.
Fail
Giants should have traded him when they had a chance
in case you weren’t paying attention they didn’t really have a chance – no one was offering anything.
You seriously think nothing was offered?
Fun fact: there were offers
If you were paying attention you’d realize the offers weren’t “sufficient” to what the giants wanted. That’s different than there being no offers. Giants holding out for a better package and getting nothing for him was a dumb move.
They played chicken and lost.
Oh well they lose him for nothing now.
Trevor Bauer is just as good if not better and can be signed at a fraction of a cost. That’s why he will have a variety of suitors and the market for Snell is like two teams that will regret it immediately
I agree Trevor definitely has a variety of suitors Naranjeros de Hermosillo, Cañeros de Los Mochis, Yaquis de Obregón, Algodoneros de Guasave, Diablos Rojos del México, Yokohama DeNA BayStars. Plus many more. in the NPB and LMB.
Sounds like you had your head smashed into the turnbuckle too many times
That was as much of a non-surprise as you can get. I can tell you one team that will not be in the bidding for him, the Angels. Arte refuses to allow Perry to sign pitchers to a deal longer than 3 years.
Left before the season was over. A lot of fans had bought tickets on his scheduled day to pitch. Good riddance.
LLGiants64;
Aw, come ‘on.
Who cares about the fans.
Grow up man.
“Imma get mines”
Did he have his Boras cap on when he left? That’s the key.