NEWSLETTER
Just three starts into his San Francisco Giants career, Blake Snell is heading to the injured list with a left-adductor strain. Oof. You hate to even say it — and who really knows if this was related — but early injuries and underperformance are a bigger risk for guys who don’t have a normal spring training ramp up … like Snell.
Blake Snell to 15-Day Injured List
After making 32 starts with a 2.25 ERA last season with the Padres, Blake Snell entered the most recent free agent market as the reigning NL Cy Young award winner. Sure, he was on the older side and had an up-and-down history, but plenty of free agents with less of a track record and more question marks have done just fine with a lot less to offer.
But Scott Boras overplayed his hand in the offseason, pushing off a deal until March 18, which delayed his ramp up and ultimately his 2024 debut (and it’s not like it was a banger of a deal, either …).
Of course, once that debut did finally come, the results were horrible:
vsWSN: 3.0 IP, 3H, 3ER, 2BB, 5K
@TBR: 4.0 IP, 6H, 7ER, 2BB, 4K
vsARI: 4.2 IP, 9H, 5ER, 1BB, 3K
For reference, Blake Snell allowed a TOTAL of 16 earned runs over his last 17 starts (99.0 IP) last season. And he’s now allowed almost as many (15 ER) in three starts and 11.2 IP this year with the Giants.
Now, Blake Snell has some protection baked into his two-year deal with the Giants: a $30M-player option for 2025. But if he does pick that up, $15M of his salary is deferred until 2027. And that won’t leave him much time (in terms of his age) to score big in free agency again after 2025. So you can bet he’s hoping this stay on the IL is short and quickly clears things up, because the idea was absolutely to test the market again this winter. Woof. What a disaster.
