Juan Soto’s conferences with house owners across the leagues have dominated headlines lately, however he’s not the one high-profile free agent or Scott Boras shopper establishing conferences with workforce contingents. Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reviews that left-hander Blake Snell has lately held conferences with the Purple 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 motive to be in on high-end rotation assist this summer time, 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 take care of an opt-out in San Francisco lower than two weeks earlier than Opening Day.
For the Purple 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 a part of them in some unspecified time in the future within the season’s first half, however his timeline stays murky after he missed all the 2024 season — his first in Boston — due to UCL surgical procedure carried out in spring coaching. Righty Garrett Whitlock can 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 an honest season as a result of an absence of minor league choices, however he’s reportedly eligible for a fourth possibility yr, which provides the Sox much more flexibility with their employees.
Many Purple Sox followers are understandably skeptical of the workforce’s willingness to comply with by on pursuits of high-profile free brokers. Boston devoted 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 Purple Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow has taken a extra aggressive stance himself this time round, declaring that it’s time for the Purple Sox to “ship the workforce that’s able to successful the AL East,” even when which means the Sox must be “aggressive in bringing gamers in who aren’t presently within the group.”
From a payroll perspective, the Purple Sox have greater than sufficient house to accommodate a number of big-ticket additions this winter. RosterResource presently tasks Boston for a $138M payroll and $171M of luxurious obligations. That projection is sort of $100M shy of their franchise-record payroll, whereas their luxurious ledger leaves them $70M shy of the first-tier threshold. After all, the Purple Sox haven’t been shy about paying the posh tax prior to now. They did in order lately as 2022 and have reset their penalty degree by dipping again below the tax line. The Purple Sox have an especially 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 usually be extra anecdotal than substantive. Nonetheless, it at the very least bears mentioning that Dodgers president of baseball operations, Andrew Friedman, was operating 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 probably 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 effectively into the second penalty tier. Snell alone may push them into the fourth tier, significantly 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 quick deal — Snell would value the Dodgers practically $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 chunk that bullet. The rotation in Los Angeles has practically unmatched star energy however equally has practically unequalled query marks. Yamamoto, Ohtani and Tyler Glasnow make up a doubtlessly dominant high three, however well being considerations abound. Yamamoto missed greater than two months with a shoulder damage 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 gifted however dangerous high 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 will likely 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, in fact, has his prolonged damage 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 in opposition to the Reds, fanned 15 Rockies in a begin at Coors Area 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 larger than common however satisfactory for somebody who can miss bats at Snell’s degree. It was solely 14 begins, however Snell was the perfect pitcher in baseball from July 2 onward.
Snell has a historical past of sluggish 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 together with 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 number of). It’s eminently doable that Snell is the kind of pitcher who merely wants a full runway to understand 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 effectively 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 should 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 provides connected to them, whereas Snell and Flaherty don’t; in different phrases, groups should forfeit draft picks and worldwide bonus pool house 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, however it’s simple sufficient to see how a membership may view Snell as essentially 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.
