Baseball's Two Best Strikeout Artists Are Available. Which Should Cubs Target?

[Matthew Trueblood]

It's not just a question of their ages and arsenals. It's also about which resources you're willing to spend, and when.

Image courtesy of © Orlando Ramirez-Imagn Images

Sometime in the next 10 days, free agency will officially open, and Blake Snell will opt out of his contract with the San Francisco Giants. Snell, 32 in December, hit the open market on the heels of his second Cy Young-winning season last fall, but he languished seemingly unwanted until the endgame of the offseason, when he signed a flexible deal with San Francisco. He has a player option for $30 million for 2025, but will surely forgo that payday to try again for a much better one

This time, he won't be tethered to draft pick compensation for any signing team, and although he struggled through both a truncated ramp-up and multiple injuries, he turned in 104 innings of good ball. Only one hurler in the league bested his strikeout rate of 34.7%, and no one who threw at least 100 frames as a starter held opposing batters to a lower weighted on-base average (wOBA) than the .241 Snell inflicted. He was, pitch for pitch, the best starting pitcher in baseball, for the second season in a row, even better than Tarik Skubal or Paul Skenes.

Meanwhile, closer to home, the White Sox will not-so-quietly go about shopping Garrett Crochet. He was available at the right price even this summer. During this hot stove season, he will almost surely be moved, as the worst team in baseball history looks to lean further into its rebuild and scale back its payroll. Crochet's track record makes a hilarious, almost ludicrous juxtaposition with that of Snell. Never a big-league starter until this year, Crochet followed an extremely cautious, strict plan to make 32 starts for the moribund Sox, pitching only 146 innings in that process. Nonetheless, he fanned 209 batters, or 35.1% of those he faced.

Because he was brought so rapidly to the majors after being drafted and accrued so much service time while shelved with various injuries, Crochet is already just two years away from hitting free agency. He'll get a substantial raise via arbitration this winter, and is in the market for a more lastingly lucrative multi-year extension. Since he won't even turn 26 until June, that could be a terrific investment—but the facts of his injury history and lack of experience as a starter are tough pills to swallow, given how much he will cost to acquire.

The two southpaws, Snell and Crochet, struck out hitters at higher rates than any other big-league starters last year. They're formidable, ace-caliber starters, although Snell's nibbling style and high walk rate is a drawback, and so is Crochet's lack of establishment in the role. Although the names Corbin Burnes (23.1% 2024 strikeout rate) and Max Fried (23.2%) have come up much more often in this preheating period for the hot stove, the Cubs should at least take an active interest in Snell and Crochet, whose ability to miss bats makes them transformative in a way that neither of the more commonly rumored Cubs targets would be. The question is: Which one?

Crochet is the more readily appealing, not only because he's younger and would leave the team much more money to spend in the short run, but because he was able to rack up his strikeouts while going right after hitters and maintaining a low walk rate. The Cubs can make up for some of the innings gap that will probably persist between Snell and Crochet, too, because they have fair rotation depth already and would be able to further supplement that corps with a durable back-end starter after adding Crochet. The downside is the fact that he would cost the team at least two of their most highly-prized prospects.

It's likely that the White Sox would demand one of Matt Shaw and Owen Caissie, plus one of the team's top pitching prospects, Cade Horton, Brandon Birdsell, or Ben Brown. In order to give up so much, the Cubs could try to make the trade contingent on an extension with Crochet, as the Dodgers did with Tyler Glasnow last winter, but Glasnow (another tall, oft-injured strikeout maven who was nearing free agency without having proved he could withstand a full season as a starter) is a good example of how that can backfire. He's not available to the Dodgers right now, and might never demonstrate the durability required of a top-tier starter.

Snell, on the other hand, might get $200 million on a deal lasting six years. That sounds much too rich, but the similarly qualified and considerably older Jacob deGrom got a gaudy five-year, $185-million deal from the Rangers two winters ago. Now that Snell has spent another year proving he can rack up whiffs in a new place, and without the qualifying offer interfering with his market, he could score big.

On balance, it's Snell who makes more sense, especially if the widespread concerns about regional TV revenues dampen his market. It feels like prying Crochet loose from intracity rivals would be too difficult and artificially costly. Either hurler would be a welcome new weapon for a starting rotation that needs more swing-and-miss in 2025, though. The Cubs need to be ready to spend big to acquire top-end talent, in whatever form of currency is required, and the pitching staff might need a true star even worse than the lineup. They're lucky to have a wide array of ways to make high-impact moves this winter, on either front.

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[Bertz]

Garret Crochet at his approximately $3M salary has a pretty decent argument for the biggest move Jed could possibly make this winter to impact 2025.  Even including Juan Soto.  As amazing as a 6-7 WAR outfielder is, in the immediate term a 4-5 WAR starter plus $40M in you pocket to spend on other players is even better.

Snell I'm less keen on.  Honestly mostly from a watchability standpoint.  His slog 5 and dive starts are something I just don't want to sign up for in a SP market that has so many viable alternatives.

[Rcal10]

24 minutes ago, Bertz said:

Garret Crochet at his approximately $3M salary has a pretty decent argument for the biggest move Jed could possibly make this winter to impact 2025.  Even including Juan Soto.  As amazing as a 6-7 WAR outfielder is, in the immediate term a 4-5 WAR starter plus $40M in you pocket to spend on other players is even better.

Snell I'm less keen on.  Honestly mostly from a watchability standpoint.  His slog 5 and dive starts are something I just don't want to sign up for in a SP market that has so many viable alternatives.

Crochet scares me, though. I just have a feeling he will have arm problems. I am not sure the WS handled him properly last year. Pitched a lot of innings compared to previous years. Hate to give up what they will need to give up to make him happen and then him have problems. Maybe I am being unreasonably concerned about him, but that is my issue. 

Edited October 28, 2024 by Rcal10