The Dodgers got yet another top-shelf ace in Blake Snell
One year ago, when Blake Snell had to settle for a short-term deal with the Giants, the outcome wasn’t received with the proper level of shock that it should’ve been. Snell continued to be Snell and, as many could’ve predicted, opted out of the final year of his deal with San Francisco in order to sign a very lucrative contract with the Dodgers, one in line with his talent and track record.
The Dodgers had to fork up serious cash to get Snell, a $182 million contract complete with both a $52 million signing bonus as well as $66 million in deferred salary. Ultimately, when you shop at the deep end of the pool, you’ll spend more than you might’ve liked, but the argument is pretty clear that the Dodgers chose the right man for the job amidst a stacked free agent class.
Since the start of the 2022 season, Snell has been as dominant a starter as baseball has seen. While the Cy Young campaign in 2023 stands out, the production in the other two years were also top-notch.
Across this three-year period, here is where Snell ranks:
- fourth in ERA (2.82)
- third in FIP (2.98)
- first in opponent batting average (.189); no one else is below .200
- second in strikeout rate (32.4 percent)
- eighth in strikeout-minus-walk rate (21 percent)
Perhaps out of all of those, the strikeout-to-walk ratio is actually the most impressive, because as we all know from many a year of seeing him in the NL West, Snell walks a lot of people. In fact, he is the only one in the top 80 of strikeout-minus-walk rate during this period with a walk rate above 10 percent (11.4).
Walks are a part of the slight misconception of Snell’s game and is an important point to address as he figures to be in Dodger Blue for many years to come.
Despite what the consistently high walk rate would suggest, Snell doesn’t have control issues. The nature of his game is to consciously try and nibble around the plate and give up some extra walks because he knows he can get away with it given the few hits he allows. Interestingly enough, if you go back over the last five seasons, the one in which he had the most struggles was the one with the highest zone rate (42.2 percent). That number was still below league average, but nowhere near the sub-40 marks he’s put up in the last two years.
“You see a guy that has had some of his challenges in terms of walk rate, and you think, okay, he doesn’t really know where his ball is going, but he’s got great stuff,” Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said last week. “He actually has really good command.
“The problem is he’s really hard to hit. So therefore most pitchers can end an at bat earlier than he can on a ball and play. Blake is so challenging to hit, that at-bats often don’t end whether it’s fouled off or just locks them up and they take it and it’s a ball. I think there’s some pitch selection, pitch usage, just different things that can help just that extra little bit.”
Snell particularly avoids the middle (height) part of the zone, regardless of width, finishing 2024 in the top 1st percentile on pitches in that area at 19.6 percent.
Obviously, there comes a point in which enough walks will hurt anyone, no matter how talented you are, but this is a guy who won a Cy Young award with five walks per nine innings, and it wasn’t luck as no one allowed fewer hits than him, on average. For Snell the name of the game is minimizing hits to a level that those walks won’t matter, and he’s done that consistently. The only times in which Snell has gotten into trouble in seasons has been when his BABIP soared well above .300, a little bit in 2021 and particularly in 2019.
Max Fried or Corbin Burnes would’ve been worthwhile options, this is not to slight them in any way, but both figure to get at least as much guaranteed cash as Snell and without that much differed money. Strictly looking at dominance, you don’t get much better than the two-time Cy Young Award winner. Snell will slot in as one of the top options in this rotation, even with the likes of Tyler Glasnow, Shohei Ohtani, and Yoshinobu Yamamoto.