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I understand why Blake Snell is not some fans' cup of tea. If truth be told, he isn't mine, either. I like my aces to fill up the strike zone, and Snell (who walked a career-high 13.3 percent of opposing batters last year) stubbornly refuses to do so. He's an inveterate nibbler. He's also a two-time Cy Young Award winner. He has four truly filthy pitches, and he's actually pretty good at locating each of them. He just spends to much time trying to hit the corners and induce chases with his breaking stuff that he lets every count become a deep one.
In the last 50 seasons (going back to 1974), 10 pitchers have had at least seven no-hit bids that lasted at least six innings. Nolan Ryan, Randy Johnson, and Justin Verlander each have double-digit games of that type. Then there are Max Scherzer and David Cone, who got through six hitless frames eight times each. That leaves five guys who have gotten that far seven times each: Aníbal Sánchez, Tim Wakefield, Roger Clemens, Dave Stieb, and Snell. A perennial 30-percent strikeout guy as a starter, Snell only really gets held back by injuries. When he took the ball, he averaged 5,6 innings per start in 2023, which just isn't that bad. Let's go pitch by pitch through his arsenal, to discuss why he's so good.
Four-Seam Fastball
Snell doesn't have a freakish fastball, from a spin or a vertical approach angle (VAA) perspective. He's the anti-Shota Imanaga--all the special in his heater comes from the high height of his release point and the speed on it. Sitting 95 and with the ability to add and subtract a few ticks in each direction from there, Snell gets good ride when he attacks the top of the zone with the fastball. He almost has to work up there for the pitch to really take off and get the whiffs he wants.
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Many pitchers, especially these days, excel at throwing their heater to one side of the plate or the other. They favor that side, and it sets up the rest of their arsenal, and they command the ball much better there than to the other side of the plate. That isn't in evidence at all with Snell. He's slightly better at commanding it to the glove side (away from a lefty) when a lefty is at the plate, mostly, he tries to move the pitch around to all quadrants and chase whiffs at the letters and above, without trying to cut the zone into thirds or quarters. Thinking that way about the fastball is what leads to starters with 13-percent walk rates, but it also makes it hard to square a guy up and leads to high strikeout rates.
Curveball
Coming from his high release point and spindly frame, Snell's curve catches you by surprise a little. You expect a hurler like this to have one of those elite spin rates--for the ball to sing with that high metallic sound as it comes of their fingers, like blade or a wine glass has been struck just right. Instead, he has a Drew Smyly-ish hook, with as much tumble as crazy top spin. Still, he does have that top spin, and he uses it to induce elite whiff rates on the curve--especially from righties. Overhand curves are often part of reverse-split packages, and indeed, lefties make contact better and more often against Snell's hook than do righties. It's a pitch that works gorgeously off the fastball, though, regardless of the handedness of the opponent.
Changeup
The offering for which Snell doesn't get enough credit is the changeup, a pitch of which he does have pretty tight command. It's not a bat-missing monster, but it does induce whiffs. More importantly, it's a weak contact machine for him. Opponents had an average exit velocity south of 80 miles per hour and an average launch angle of just over 2 degrees on Snell's changeup in 2023. He didn't throw the pitch a single time to a lefty; he threw nearly 600 of them to righties. He just pounds away at one target with it, and because righties have to be ready for three other pitches, they're helpless on it.
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Slider
This is the pitch that occasionally gets hit hard for him. Snell's slider is a 'gyro' type offering, with a small deviation in actual spin axis from the fastball but a wide variance in the exact spin he applies to it from one offering to the next.
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It still gets a ton of whiffs, but a pitch like that is not going to be easily or prettily commanded. It's far from a sweeper, with a mostly vertical movement differential from the fastball, and it'll sometimes hang on the glove-side third of the plate, above the knee. When that happens, he does pay for it. It doesn't happen so often that he really gets hurt in the big picture, though, as evidenced by the two Cy Young Awards and the career ERA of 3.20.
Snell is a much more complete pitcher than he gets credit for. Entering the offseason, I ranked him fourth on my list of the top 50 fits for the Cubs in free agency, one ahead of Imanaga. I still think that's true. It's very hard to swallow the worry and pony up over $200 million for a pitcher like Snell, because he issues so many walks and has had hip trouble, groin trouble, and loose bodies in his elbow within the last five years. .png.442edcb3dc138f9abee6e5a7ca1128ee.png)
Once you step back from focusing on your preferred picayune problems, though, you can see the big picture, and it's worth that kind of investment. Snell is the last player available who really represents an infusion of superstar talent and transformation for the Cubs. With him joining Justin Steele, Imanaga, Jameson Taillon, and Kyle Hendricks in the starting rotation, the team would take a leap to a new level of expected competitiveness.
Obviously, it's wildly unlikely to come to fruition. If the Cubs do spend that kind of money at this point, it's more likely to be on Cody Bellinger. Still, I think Snell might be a wiser investment than has become the consensus. He does a lot of things very, very well--more than enough to make up for the things he does that are aggravating.
Would you still want Snell on a long-term, high-dollar deal? Or does Imanaga slake your thirst for rotation reinforcement this winter? Let's discuss it.
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