Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
Some unexpected breaking news on Thanksgiving Eve-eve, as Blake Snell has reportedly agreed to a five-year, $182 million deal with the Dodgers, according to Jeff Passan and Jorge Castillo.
Left-hander Blake Snell and the Los Angeles Dodgers are in agreement on a five-year, $182 million contract, pending physical, sources tell me and @jorgecastillo. The World Series champions get the two-time Cy Young winner in the first nine-figure deal of the winter.
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) November 27, 2024
Apparently, Snell himself broke the news before any of the national reporters on his Instagram, leading to shock slowly spreading across social media.
The contract has no opt-outs, a $52 million signing bonus, and $65 million in deferrals to get the CBT number down from $36.4 million to around $32.5 million or something.
Blake Snell’s deal with the Dodgers has no opt-outs. @MLBNetwork
— Jon Morosi (@jonmorosi) November 27, 2024
Blake Snell’s $52M signing bonus and $13M/year in deferrals ($65M total) in $182M deal balances out so contract value remains $36.4M. But since bonus doesn’t count against CBT number, it’s only about $32M-$33M on Dodgers CBT ledger.
— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) November 27, 2024
Note: Jon Heyman worded this weirdly, but the signing bonus money does count towards the CBT, it just doesn’t penalize teams for giving them.
It’s quite the way to begin the offseason for the World Series champions. Snell figured to get one of the biggest contracts after following up his 2023 NL Cy Young season (his second Cy) with an even better 2024 (in fewer innings, which counts). But instead of signing in mid-March, he’s signing in late-November and will have a full offseason to build up for his new team.
Perhaps due to the late start, Snell began the 2024 season slowly with a 9.51 ERA in his first six starts through early June. After a groin injury, he came back and July and pitched like the best in baseball, putting up a 1.23 ERA and 1.77 FIP over his final 14 starts. 32 years old in eight days, Snell pitched to a 3.12 ERA, 2.43 FIP and a 24.2 K-BB% overall last year. He also allowed just an 86.5 MPH average exit velocity, which is something the Dodgers tend to favor in their pitchers. And aside from some walks, there’s a ton of red in his Statcast ledger.
While he’s prone to issuing free passes and it can be maddening at times, there’s evidence that he does so on purpose to simply to stay away from hard contact and he doesn’t have command issues like his perception.
Love Blake Snell getting some love here for his command. The BB% makes it seems like he's wild, but he is making a conscious choice not to end up in the heart of the plate. It's how he throws the fewest "Mistake" pitches each year (3% again in 2024!) https://t.co/h3JLOll1dV https://t.co/TcANH5zHTW pic.twitter.com/gGBK0GIXnG
— Kyle Bland (@blandalytics) November 19, 2024
There’s some method to his madness.
Pulling back for the larger picture, since Snell became this version of Blake Snell in 2018, he has a 3.03 ERA and 3.22 FIP in 878.1 innings with a whopping 1151 strikeouts (32.1 K%) and 384 walks (10.7 BB%). Famously, he has not been good at going deep into games (like say, the 2020 World Series decision) and has gone over 130 innings just twice in his career, but he has mostly escaped arm trouble since 2019.
Snell has also been relatively effective in the playoffs with a 3.33 ERA in 10 starts and two relief appearances over 48.2 innings, which isn’t necessarily a surprise given his stuff.
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As far as the contract goes, the predictions from The Athletic, ESPN, FanGraphs and MLB Trade Rumors were off mostly by a year.
- The Athletic: 4 years, $110 million
- ESPN: 4 years, $124 million
- FanGraphs: 3 years, $105 million
- MLBTR: 5 years, $160 million
Four years and $125 million was the average ($31.25MM AAV), so the Dodgers gave him an extra year and effectively around a $32.5 AAV instead. If one takes the average of Snell’s RA9 WAR and FIP WAR, he’s been worth about 3.7 WAR per year in full seasons since 2018, so the valuation here is not far off even if it’s a slight overpay when factoring in age-related decline. Still, the point of his contract is not to win the $/WAR battle in a struggle to maximize efficiency, but for him to add more security to rotation and for his high-end stuff to be available in October for years to come.
As far as potential opportunity cost, the Dodgers always figured to be in the market for a starting pitcher, and of the “Big 3,” — Corbin Burnes, Max Fried, Snell — I liked Snell the best. Of course, you wouldn’t know that because I didn’t have him in my offseason plan (even if he was in an earlier draft), and I didn’t actually get around to writing a post about all three big starters. Comps between them will be inevitable, but Burnes is likely to get the biggest contract and longest commitment of the trio (slightly worse numbers but more innings), while Fried is likely to secure a similar deal despite forearm injuries in back-to-back seasons (and also having slightly worse numbers), so in a weird way Snell might be the safest bet.
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When healthy, the Dodgers’ rotation looks really, really strong.
I don’t think this signing would close the door whatsoever on the Dodgers bringing back Walker Buehler, as we saw what the rotation looked like in the postseason (and they still won, lol). It does, however, probably end any chance of Jack Flaherty coming back. Roki Sasaki will obviously still be in play, like he should be for every team, and Clayton Kershaw should be a solid midseason addition.
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This is the kind of splash the Dodgers should be making with their financial advantage. They can afford to pay Snell $36 million per season and he was the highest-ceiling starting pitcher available. They should probably still be in on Juan Soto and a bunch of others, but it always seemed like signing him would be a longshot anyway. Good start to the off-season.
Lots to be thankful for, Dodger fans.
