Blake Snell (32), a left-hander who won the Cy Young Award twice, will head to the Los Angeles Dodgers, the winner of the World Series. Returning to the FA led to a “jackpot” contract.
U.S. ESPN reporter Jeff Bankruptcy said on the 27th (Korea Standard Time) that Snell agreed to a five-year, $182 million contract with the Dodgers. It is the first large contract worth more than 100 million dollars in the FA market with physical examinations left. Snell also posted a composite photo of himself wearing a Dodgers uniform on his SNS.
According to additional reports, the contract includes some “Dipper” who will be paid a later salary. The down payment alone is $52 million, with no opt-out clause and limited trade veto rights.
Dodgers has been suffering from injuries to starting pitchers throughout this year. There were no pitchers in the regular innings. Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Glasnow, the “one-two punch” that they acquired last winter, also failed to complete the full season due to injuries. Though they won the World Series, they had three fixed starters in the postseason and had to play four bullpen days. With Gavin Stone and Clayton Kershaw undergoing surgery, Dodgers put priority on strengthening starting pitchers this offseason and quickly caught top-rated FA Snell.
Snell is a two-time winner of the Cy Young Award(에볼루션카지노). Since his debut with the Tampa Bay Rays in 2016, he has played for the San Diego Padres and the San Francisco Giants, recording 76 wins and 58 losses with a 3.19 strikeout and 1,368 ERA in nine seasons in the Major League.
In 2018, he played in 31 games (180 ⅔ innings) with Tampa Bay, recording 21 wins and 5 losses with 1.79 strikeouts and 221 ERA. In 2023, he won the National League Cy Young Award as a member of the San Diego Padres with 14 wins and 9 losses with 2.25 strikeouts and 234 ERA. He is the seventh player to win the Cy Young Award in the two major leagues after Gailod Perry, Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez, Roger Clemens, Roy Halladay and Max Scherzer. Except for Clemens and Scherzer, who are suspected of drugs, they are all pitchers who have been inducted into the Hall of Fame.
Snell faced a cold wind unexpectedly last winter when he was curiously introduced to the FA market after receiving the Cy Young Award. As shown in the two Cy Young Awards, the season when he was a high-pitched player but not due to poor ball control was normal. Due to his large and small injuries, he only had two seasons of regulation innings. Since he is a pitcher with low stability and high risk, the clubs did not offer Snell a high-priced long-term contract.
In the end, he signed a two-year, $62 million FA contract with San Francisco on March 20, just before the opening of the season. It was actually an FA re-entry on the condition that the opt-out was included after the season. He promised a year later with “Super Agent” Scott Boras, but the strategy worked.
Snell recorded five wins and three losses with an earned run average of 3.12 strikeouts and 145 strikeouts in 20 games (104 innings). His preparation for the season was not sufficient, probably due to the aftermath of skipping spring training due to delayed contracting. He left the club twice due to adductor muscle and groin injuries in April and June, respectively, and had three losses and an earned run average of 6.31 strikeouts without winning eight games (35 ⅔ innings) in the first half.
However, he regained his physical condition in the second half and made a dramatic comeback. He pitched well against the Cincinnati Reds on Aug. 3 with five wins, no losses, and an earned run average of 1.45 strikeouts in 12 games (68 ⅓ innings). He spent an intense second half of the season with his changeup coming back to life on his average 95.9 mph (154.3 kph) four-seam fastball, and he entered the FA market as an opt-out after a season. He was classified as a special starting FA along with Corbin Burns and Max Fried, and was the first to decide his destination.
The five-year, 182 million dollars amounts to 36.4 million dollars annually. This is higher than Gerrit Cole, who signed a nine-year, $324 million contract with the New York Yankees in December 2019 for an annual average of 36 million dollars. Although the contract period is shorter than Cole’s, he received the highest annual treatment for pitchers based on contracts for more than five years. It is also the Dodgers’ commitment to win the World Series for the second consecutive year.
The Dodgers, which invested heavily in Shohei Ohtani (US$700 million for 10 years), Shouhei Yamamoto (US$325 million for 12 years) and Glasnow (US$136.5 million for 5 years) last winter, spent a lot of money again this winter by recruiting Snell. The Dodgers, whose starting lineup has been greatly upgraded, with Ohtani, Yamamoto, Glasnow and Snell returning to the mound. If Tony Gonsolin, Dustin May and Kershaw, who are injured in Snell, return, they will also be able to become the best starting team in the league in terms of quantity. If we catch Rocky Sasaki, a Japanese pitcher who is challenging the Major League through posting, it will truly be a mound that can usher in the era of the Dodgers Dynasty.