Snell lands two-year, $62M contract with Giants
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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. The deal includes an opt-out after the first season.
San Francisco released terms of the deal on Tuesday. Snell received a $17 million signing bonus and is set to make $15 million this season and $30 million next season, half of which will be deferred until 2027.
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 reenter 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 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.
ESPN’s Buster Olney contributed to this report.
Cincinnati Reds left-hander Wade Miley said Friday that he has not been accused of any wrongdoing, one day after reports stated a deposition from a lawsuit alleged he supplied Tyler Skaggs with drugs when both players were with the Arizona Diamondbacks.
The deposition is part of a motion for summary judgment filed by the Los Angeles Angels, requesting a lawsuit from the Skaggs family be dismissed.
The deposition from Ryan Hamill, Skaggs’ agent, contains testimony that he was concerned in 2013 about Skaggs’ drug use. Hamill said he and Skaggs’ family confronted Skaggs about his drug use. Skaggs was then in his second season as a teammate of Miley with the Diamondbacks.
“He came clean,” Hamill testified. “He said he had been using — I believe it was Percocets — and he said he got them through Wade Miley.”
Skaggs died on July 1, 2019, at age 27 in a Dallas-area hotel. The autopsy found fentanyl, oxycodone and alcohol in his system.
Miley briefly addressed the issue before Friday’s road game against the Detroit Tigers.
“I hate what happened to Tyler, it sucks. My thoughts are with his family and his friends,” Miley said. “But I’m not going to sit here and talk about things that someone might have said about me or whatnot. I was never a witness for any of this. I was never accused of any wrongdoing.”
Former Angels communications director Eric Kay is serving a 22-year prison sentence in Texas after being found guilty on two charges of providing drugs related on Skaggs’ overdose.
The Athletic reported that the criminal proceedings against Kay included a recorded phone conversation in which Kay told his mother that Miley was a drug source to Skaggs.
Asked if Major League Baseball has contacted him regarding the allegations, Miley said, “I’d rather just focus on the Cincinnati Reds right now and baseball and what I have to do moving forward. I’ve got to get ready for a game on Sunday.”
Miley was mentioned in Kay’s criminal case, but he was never charged with a crime.
Skaggs was traded to the Angels after the 2013 season. He went 28-38 with a 4.41 ERA in 96 career starts.
Miley, 38, is with his eighth big league team and attempting to revive his career after Tommy John surgery in 2024.
Miley has a career 109-99 mark with a 4.09 ERA in 319 games (311 starts) since making his major league debut in 2011. This is his second go-round with the Reds. He was with the team in the 2020 and 2021 seasons, going 12-10 with a 3.55 ERA in 177⅓ innings over 34 starts (32 innings).
The Skaggs family is suing the Angels, contending that high-level team officials, as well as other employees, knew Kay was a drug user and should have known he was Skaggs’ source.
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