Juan Soto’s conferences with homeowners across the leagues have dominated headlines lately, however he’s not the one high-profile free agent or Scott Boras consumer organising conferences with staff contingents. Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic stories that left-hander Blake Snell has lately held conferences with the Pink Sox and Dodgers. The Blue Jays are additionally pursuing Snell, per Rosenthal’s report, and will quickly arrange a gathering. The Orioles are one other potential membership that might achieve this.
Boston and Los Angeles have cause to be in on high-end rotation assist this summer season, and the 32-year-old Snell, a two-time Cy Younger winner, clearly matches the billing. Equally, Snell has good motivation to push for a swifter free company than final offseason, after lingering available on the market into spring coaching and signing a two-year cope with an opt-out in San Francisco lower than two weeks earlier than Opening Day.
For the Pink Sox, Snell would add a No. 1 starter to the highest of a rotation that might lose Nick Pivetta to free company after he rejected a qualifying provide. Tanner Houck, Kutter Crawford and Brayan Bello are all rotation locks proper now. Lucas Giolito will be part of them in some unspecified time in the future within the season’s first half, however his timeline stays murky after he missed the whole 2024 season — his first in Boston — because of UCL surgical procedure carried out in spring coaching. Righty Garrett Whitlock can also be on the mend from his personal UCL process.
Candidates for the ultimate two rotation spots at Fenway Park embody Richard Fitts, Cooper Criswell, Quinn Priester and Zach Penrod. Criswell appeared to have a leg up after a good season as a result of an absence of minor league choices, however he’s reportedly eligible for a fourth choice yr, which provides the Sox much more flexibility with their workers.
Many Pink Sox followers are understandably skeptical of the staff’s willingness to comply with by on pursuits of high-profile free brokers. Boston trustworthy are nonetheless stinging from chairman Tom Werner’s broadly mocked “full throttle” feedback final offseason, which didn’t lead to an acquisition bigger than Giolito’s two-year, $38.5M contract. However Pink Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow has taken a extra aggressive stance himself this time round, declaring that it’s time for the Pink Sox to “ship the staff that’s able to successful the AL East,” even when which means the Sox have to be “aggressive in bringing gamers in who aren’t at present within the group.”
From a payroll perspective, the Pink Sox have greater than sufficient area to accommodate a number of big-ticket additions this winter. RosterResource at present tasks Boston for a $138M payroll and $171M of luxurious obligations. That projection is almost $100M shy of their franchise-record payroll, whereas their luxurious ledger leaves them $70M shy of the first-tier threshold. After all, the Pink Sox haven’t been shy about paying the posh tax previously. They did in order lately as 2022 and have reset their penalty stage by dipping again underneath the tax line. The Pink Sox have a particularly small arbitration class — simply Houck, Crawford and Jarren Duran — and can solely add Triston Casas, Connor Wong and maybe Zack Kelly to that group in 2026.
Turning to the Dodgers, there’s an apparent case for Snell as a match. Connections like this could typically be extra anecdotal than substantive. Nonetheless, it no less than bears mentioning that Dodgers president of baseball operations, Andrew Friedman, was working baseball operations in Tampa Bay when the Rays drafted and developed Snell. Exterior their offers for Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto — two gamers with distinctive free agent circumstances — the Dodgers have most well-liked shorter-term, high-AAV offers in free company. That would make Snell, whose most contract size is maybe shorter than different top-tier starters as a result of he’s about to show 32, a extra typical “Dodgers” match.
One deterrent for the Dodgers may very well be an already bloated luxurious tax invoice. RosterResource pegs them at $270M in obligations, which means they’re already nicely into the second penalty tier. Snell alone may push them into the fourth tier, notably on a high-AAV short-term deal. Even utilizing final yr’s $31M AAV as a hypothetical guideline — and Snell has a case for a better one on one other comparatively brief deal — Snell would value the Dodgers almost $57M in yr one of many contract. That’d additionally set the Dodgers as much as pay a 110% tax on any {dollars} spent after that. Trades and non-tenders may reduce the sting, however doubtless not by a lot. Any free-agent {dollars} spent by the Dodgers are going to harm.
Nonetheless, the Dodgers doubtless really feel they should chew that bullet. The rotation in Los Angeles has almost unmatched star energy however equally has almost unmatched query marks. Yamamoto, Ohtani and Tyler Glasnow make up a doubtlessly dominant prime three, however well being issues abound. Yamamoto missed greater than two months with a shoulder harm in 2024. Glasnow was restricted to solely 22 begins final yr, and his modest 134 innings represented a career-high. Ohtani didn’t pitch whereas recovering from the second UCL restore of his profession.
Past that, the proficient however dangerous prime three are Tony Gonsolin (who missed all of 2024 recovering from Tommy John surgical procedure), Dustin Could (who missed all of 2024 recovering from forearm surgical procedure and an esophageal process), and Bobby Miller (a breakout 2023 rookie who struggled immensely in 2024). Extremely touted younger arms like Gavin Stone (shoulder surgical procedure), River Ryan (Tommy John surgical procedure), Emmet Sheehan (Tommy John surgical procedure) and Kyle Harm (Tommy John surgical procedure) will miss some or all the 2025 season. Dodgers icon Clayton Kershaw shall be again on some incentive-laden deal — he’s already declared as a lot — although the 2 events have but to return to particular phrases. Kershaw began simply seven video games final yr.
Snell, after all, has his prolonged harm historical past — together with a pair of groin and adductor accidents that restricted him to 6 terrible begins within the season’s first two months with the archrival Giants. Nevertheless, upon returning in early July, the lefty appeared again to Cy Younger kind. He fired 12 shutout frames between his first two begins, kicking off a three-month run for the ages. Snell tossed a no-hitter at Cincinnati’s Nice American Ball Park towards the Reds, fanned 15 Rockies in a begin at Coors Discipline and at one level went on a streak of 4 double-digit strikeout performances in 5 begins.
Over the ultimate three months of the season, Snell was comically dominant. He pitched 80 1/3 innings with a jaw-dropping 1.23 ERA, complemented by an elite 38.1% strikeout price and a ten% stroll price that’s greater than common however satisfactory for somebody who can miss bats at Snell’s stage. It was solely 14 begins, however Snell was one of the best pitcher in baseball from July 2 onward.
Snell has a historical past of gradual begins and blistering second-half surges, however as I examined late within the season for MLBTR Entrance Workplace subscribers, lots of his first-half struggles have come at the side of uncommon spring circumstances (i.e. the shortened 2020 season, the accelerated ramp-up from the 2021-22 lockout, and signing in late March final yr). True, some pitchers succeeded regardless of comparable circumstances, however we’ve additionally repeatedly seen late-signing pitchers battle early within the yr (e.g., Jordan Montgomery, Jake Odorizzi, and Lance Lynn, to call a couple of). It’s eminently attainable that Snell is the kind of pitcher who merely wants a full runway to appreciate his greatest kind. He’d hardly be alone in that regard, and that attribute offers him all of the extra motivation to have a deal in place nicely earlier than spring coaching begins.
Snell faces some notable competitors on the free agent market. Some golf equipment might not need to spend aggressively on one other free agent earlier than they know the result of the Juan Soto public sale, and even these keen to spend earlier than that may even must weigh the deserves of signing a 32-year-old Snell versus a 31-year-old Max Fried, 30-year-old Corbin Burnes or 29-year-old Jack Flaherty. Fried and Burnes have qualifying gives connected to them, whereas Snell and Flaherty don’t; in different phrases, groups must forfeit draft picks and worldwide bonus pool area to signal Fried or Burnes — however not Snell or Flaherty. Snell is three years older than Flaherty but additionally extra achieved. He actually has his warts and carries loads of dangers, nevertheless it’s simple sufficient to see how a membership may view Snell as probably the most interesting of this offseason’s top-tier starters when factoring in doubtless size of the contract, draft compensation, monitor report, well being, and different elements.
