Mark Whicker: Dodgers signing free agent Blake Snell an audacious move

Two-time Cy Young award winner Blake Snell signed a five-year deal with the Los Angeles Dodgers.

November 30, 2024

By Mark Whicker

Canadian Baseball Network

It was Game 6 of the 2020 World Series, and Tampa Bay Rays lefthander Blake Snell had somehow dug his way around the rules. He was throwing marbles, not baseballs, at the Los Angeles Dodgers.

He faced 18 batters and struck out nine. He struck out the side in the first. He struck out the side, all swinging and missing at strike three, in the fourth. Going into the seventh, Snell had given up a base hit to Chris Taylor and that was it. Tampa Bay led, 1-0, and a win would send this odd, neutral-site Series into the quietest Game 7 ever played, and a dangerous one for the Dodgers, still looking for their first championship since 1988.

Snell got a pop fly for the first out in the seventh. Catcher Austin Barnes singled on a 1-1 pitch. That’s when an unexpected intruder began walking onto the field. As security personnel tensed in Arlington’s Globe Life Park, it became clear that the person was not a belligerent fan but was, in fact, wearing a uniform. He was Tampa Bay manager Kevin Cash, and he removed Snell from the game after 73 pitches.

In the Dodger dugout, manager Dave Roberts looked up in surprise and made eye contact with Mookie Betts.

“He smiled,” Roberts said.

They all should have. Betts was the next hitter. He doubled off reliever Nick Anderson. A wild pitch and a fielder’s choice brought home Barnes and Betts.

In the ninth, Betts added another home run, and the Dodgers won, 3-1. It was an astonishing decision and to understand it, one had to believe Cash had acquired X-ray vision, that he could see past all the tangible events of the first six innings and somehow detect that Snell’s organs were on the verge of collapse from the exertion.

Yet Cash’s move has become commonplace. In 2021, in approximately the same situation, the Phillies took Zack Wheeler out of a Game 6 he had been controlling. He was leading Houston, 1-0, but put two runners on in the sixth. Rob Thomson (Corunna, Ont.) brought in Jose Alvarado, and Yordan Alvarez took his 2-and-1 pitch into a galaxy far, far away, and the Astros won the game, 4-1, and the Series, 4-2.

Snell moved on to San Diego, where he won his second Cy Young Award, and then to San Francisco, where he pitched a no-hitter last year.

This week he agreed to a five-year deal with the Dodgers, worth $182 million.

There were the familiar howls over dollar diplomacy and the like, considering that the Dodgers last year signed Yoshinobu Yamamoto for 12 years, $325 million. In truth, this is an audacious move that goes against the current of modern starting pitcher evaluation.

Snell’s two Cy Young seasons both came when he pitched 180 innings.

Those are by far his busiest seasons. Snell is averaging 121.8 innings per season, and 5 1/3 innings per start, which explains part of why Cash heard alarms go off that night in Texas.

Snell also averages 23.3 starts per season. He went to the mound 20 times in 2024. Snell, who turns 31 next week, did lead the league in ERA in his best years (1.89 for Tampa Bay in 2018, 2.25 for San Diego in 2023, when he also led the National League with 99 walks).

But the Dodgers are supposed to be in the midst of a blue-ribbon study of their own pitching carnage, designed to figure out why the River Ryans and the Kyle Hurts and the Emmet Sheehans have to go into the shop just when their fans are falling in love with them.

All of baseball could use some research on that subject, of course, but the Dodgers’ surgical bill is obscene.

They’re hoping Shohei Ohtani can return to the mound for the first time since 2023 and continue to spark debates on whether he’s a better pitcher than hitter.

They’re hoping Yamamoto can provide more than 90 innings over eight starts.

They’re hoping Tyler Glasnow, possessor of Cy Young stuff, is ready to pitch more than 134 innings, his 2024 total and his career high.

They’re hoping Sheehan, Dustin May and Tony Gonsolin can resume their careers, and that Landon Knack can build on his promise.

That’s a lot of hope, and a bottomless hope chest. The Dodgers are never done spending. After they won the 2024 World Series, they quickly announced Betts would be playing second base. That was an oddly definitive statement, considering those decisions are often made in spring training. And it would leave a hole in right field.

Hmmm. Can you think of any unaffiliated rightfielders out there who might be a fit? On Friday the Dodgers signed Tommy Edman, the MVP of the NL Championship Series, to a five-year, $74-million extension. That would seem to free up Gavin Lux or Miguel Rojas, or maybe both, for additional dealing.

We expect so little from our starting pitchers these days. This year, only 21 of them reached the 180-inning mark. Only 51 of them were able to make 30 starts. Only six pitchers have been able to start 30 games in each of the past four years. They are Kevin Gausman, Charlie Morton, Aaron Nola, Dylan Cease, Kyle Gibson and Patrick Corbin. None have been able to go 30-180 in each of those years.

You say you want a revolution? Only 10 short seasons ago, there were 33 major league pitchers who surpassed 200 innings and made at least 30 starts. Atlanta’s pitchers had 110 quality starts in 2014 and five other staffs had 100 or more. In 2024? Seattle had 92 and Philadelphia had 80. Everyone else had fewer.

Given all that, did the Dodgers really have to spend that much for Snell? Only if they feared Snell would return to San Diego, the division rival which held a 2-1 lead over the Dodgers in the Division Series.

Or if they felt Snell could replicate Clayton Kershaw at his finest. In a five-year span beginning in 2011, Kershaw put up 33 starts and 200-plus innings four times. Clearly the percentages could revert to blue, and Snell, Ohtani, Yamamoto, Glasnow, May and Gonsolin could navigate the season relatively unscathed.

If that happens, the Dodgers might approach 120 wins, a milestone that once seemed as inaccessible as the $25 ballpark beer. Both are more visible than the bottom of the vault.