Source: Snell lands 2-year, $62M deal with Giants
-
Alden Gonzalez, ESPN Staff Writer
Blake Snell‘s prolonged free agency has ended.
The reigning National League Cy Young Award winner agreed to a two-year, $62 million deal with the San Francisco Giants on Monday, 10 days before his new team opens its regular season against his former one, the San Diego Padres, a source confirmed to ESPN’s Jeff Passan. The deal includes an opt-out after the first season.
Snell’s deal — like those of fellow Scott Boras clients Cody Bellinger and Matt Chapman, both of whom signed after spring training began — gives him a higher average annual value in exchange for fewer length on his contract, but also allows him to re-enter free agency with the hope of experiencing a more robust market next offseason.
Snell completes what has been a busy offseason for the Giants, who have made the playoffs only once in the past seven years and strived to acquire more star power for a team now led by three-time manager of the year Bob Melvin.
The Giants added a new center fielder and leadoff hitter in Korea’s Jung Hoo Lee, who signed a six-year, $113 million deal in December, and a new middle-of-the-order bat in Jorge Soler, who was given a three-year, $42 million deal in February. They also traded for former Cy Young Award winner Robbie Ray, who won’t return until the second half as he recovers from Tommy John surgery, and signed Jordan Hicks, who will convert to a full-time starting pitcher.
But their biggest moves came late, when they landed Chapman on March 1 with a three-year, $54 million deal that includes two opt-outs, 18 days before agreeing to bring in Snell.
Snell, 31, spent the past three years with the Padres and will now return to a division that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers splurge more than $1.2 billion in an offseason headlined by Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Tyler Glasnow.
Snell threw a four-inning simulated game from his hometown of Seattle on Friday. The Houston Astros, Los Angeles Angels and New York Yankees were among the teams most frequently linked to Snell, but ultimately the Giants’ short-term offer won out.
Snell is one of seven pitchers who have won the Cy Young Award in both the American League and National League, taking home the trophy in 2023 after going 14-9 with an MLB-best 2.25 ERA for San Diego. He received 28 of 30 first-place votes.
In 2018, Snell got 17 of 30 first-place votes after posting a 1.89 ERA in 31 starts for the Tampa Bay Rays to beat out Justin Verlander.
Snell has long been renowned for having some of the nastiest stuff of any left-hander in the game, with a vicious fastball-breaking ball combination. When the Rays made him available for trade following the 2020 World Series, San Diego jumped at the opportunity, swapping four players for the lefty. He allowed the fewest hits per nine innings (5.8) of any pitcher who qualified for the ERA title last season, surrendering just 115 hits over his 180 innings.
Some teams, however, were concerned about bidding big on him in free agency because of his past command issues and inconsistency. The year after he won his first Cy Young Award, Snell’s ERA ballooned to 4.29. Last season, Snell led the major leagues in walks with 99.
Snell’s agreement with the Giants was first reported by the New York Post.
ESPN’s Buster Olney contributed to this report.
-
Jeff Passan, ESPN
Major League Baseball plans to address its uniform fiasco after changes this spring to the standard jerseys and pants led to widespread complaints from players and fans, according to a memo obtained Sunday night by ESPN.
The prominent modifications include a return to larger lettering on the back of jerseys, remedying mismatched gray tops and bottoms and addressing the new Nike jerseys’ propensity to collect sweat, according to the memo distributed to players by the MLB Players Association on Sunday.
The changes, which will happen at the latest by the beginning of the 2025 season, will also include fixes to the pants, widely panned this spring for being see-through.
The union informed players of the coming changes in a letter that placed the blame on Nike and the debut of its Vapor Premier uniform, which was advertised for its superior performance but remains disliked by players.
“This has been entirely a Nike issue,” the memo to players read. “At its core, what has happened here is that Nike was innovating something that didn’t need to be innovated.”
The union also absolved Fanatics, the manufacturer of the uniform that has received the majority of public scorn for the uniform mess, saying the company “recognizes the vital importance of soliciting Player feedback, obtaining Player buy-in and not being afraid to have difficult conversations about jerseys or trading cards. Our hope is that, moving forward, Nike will take a similar approach.”
While the new uniformed debuted at the 2023 All-Star Game, its rollout this spring led to reams of bad publicity. The shrinking of the letter size on players’ name plates gave jerseys an amateur look. The pants — which, according to the memo, will “return to the higher quality zipper used in 2023” — had myriad issues, including the see-through fabric, a lack of tailoring and rips and tears that players believed unnecessary.
Nike’s partnership with MLB began in 2019, when it took over as the league’s official uniform supplier as part of a 10-year, $1 billion deal for MLB. Fanatics has partnerships with the league and the union, both of which have invested in the company and own small stakes.
“We cautioned Nike against various changes when they previewed them in 2022, particularly regarding pants,” the union memo read. “MLB had been, and has been, aware of our concerns as well. Unfortunately, until recently Nike’s position has essentially boiled down to — ‘nothing to see here, Players will need to adjust.'”
MLB declined to comment. Nike did not offer immediate comment when reached by ESPN. Fanatics did not respond to a request for comment. The MLBPA declined to comment.
-
Neil Paine
The first week-plus of the 2024 Stanley Cup playoffs has already provided much in the way of excitement and bone-crunching action. The average playoff game has featured 89.5 combined hits by both teams — nearly double the league average (45.5) from the regular season, according to ESPN Stats & Information.
With so much chaos, there are plenty of teams that have exceeded — or fallen short of — expectations already.
For instance, the defending champion Vegas Golden Knights have been mighty impressive, taking a 2-1 lead over a Dallas Stars team that had led the league in goal differential during the regular season. But on the disappointing side, the Toronto Maple Leafs have fallen behind 3-1 in their series against the Boston Bruins, and the Los Angeles Kings are in a 3-1 hole versus the Edmonton Oilers.
Let’s run through the clubs that fit into each category, based on their playoff goal differentials as compared with what we’d expect from their pre-series power ratings and their opponent’s (adjusting for home-ice advantage). We’ll also highlight a player who has contributed to the state of his team, for good or bad, in the playoffs thus far.
We’ll start with the positive side of things. Here are three teams that have impressed the most:
-
Sports2 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Environment11 months agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Sports3 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Sports6 months agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Environment1 year agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Technology3 years ago
Game consoles were once banned in China. Now Chinese developers want a slice of the $49 billion pie
-
Politics2 years ago
Have the last few wobbly weeks seen a turning point for Johnson as PM?