I can’t say that I’m particularly a fan of pitcher Blake Snell; I tend to not care for baseball players that act like out-of-touch man-babies when it comes to how much they’re paid for the privilege of playing professional baseball, and Snell is amongst the worst.
He once suggested that players should’ve been paid their full salaries during the COVID season, and he’s one of those guys that it’s pretty clear that his full career objective is accumulating as much money as possible, which inherently there’s nothing wrong with, but it’s also the way that he’s trying to accomplish it with an inequitable amount of effort exerted to earn it that rubs me the wrong way.
This past off-season was a delight to see him flounder away during free agency, and basically becoming the cautionary poster boy for talented free agent to get absolutely pwned by the process. He was looking for comparable money that the Dodgers had paid Japanese import Yoshinobu Yamamoto (12-year, $365M), and along the way had turned down an offer from the Yankees that was half that, thinking if he held out, he could get better, if not comparable.
He was wrong. Delightfully.
Ultimately, he signed with the Giants on a two-year, $62M deal which is still an egregious annual value to a human being to throw a baseball over and over again, and seeing as how it had an opt-out clause in between, it was evident that Snell’s goal was going to be to pitch his ass off, opt-out, and try again for a Yamamoto deal, while also having the security cushion of a fat $31M second year with the Giants if things fell through.
The 2024 season couldn’t have started off any worse for someone playing the game Snell was trying to play; he would go 0-3, never getting out of the fifth inning, and have an ERA of 11.57. His peripherals were shit, he was throwing too many pitches, walking too many guys, and downright sucked. It was clear that he basically did no work or working out during the offseason, and didn’t prepare at all during the spring since he was technically unemployed almost until the start of the season, and it was showing on the field.
He was put on the DL for sucking, AKA bullshit injury to justify poor performance, and came back at the end of May, where he would proceed to string together three more shitty starts, where he still couldn’t get out of the fifth inning, and was pitching terribly, but was masked by the fact that the Giants still won two of those games in spite of him.
I relished in Snell’s poor performance, and despite my general disdain for Bay Area sports fans, even I didn’t think they deserved the turd that the Blake Snell contract was turning into. Without question, he was going to opt-in to year two of his deal, and hamstring the Giants for another $31M that could’ve been utilized in so many better ways.
Once again he went on the DL for sucking, and he was back on July 9th and this is where the story really begins. Snell would pitch five innings, giving up just a single hit and no runs, and the Giants would win. The Giants would win two of his next three starts, with Snell pitching like the two-time Cy Young winner he was.
On August 2nd, Snell would get the first win of his season, after pitching a fucking no-hitter against the Cincinnati Reds, and he would follow that with another quality start and another win.
The overall picture of Blake Snell’s current 2024 isn’t notable – 2-3 W-L in 12 starts, a 4.31 ERA, with the Giants going 7-5. But since July, he’s gone 2-0 in six starts, has an ERA of 1.15 and the team has gone 5-1.
It’s very apparent that he’s finally woken up, and that he’s beginning to pitch his ass off so that he can opt-out at the end of the season and make another try for a long-term Yamamoto-money deal.
Here’s the thing though, as many words as I’ve spoken to be critical about Blake Snell, I actually have never bothered to really take a deep dive into the numbers that paint the picture of Blake Snell; until now. And the most interesting thing I’m discovering about ol’ Balakey is that save for the no-hitter, the season narrative described above is absolutely nothing out of the ordinary for him.
I’ve read numerous times about how Snell is “a slow starter” but figured it was typical media defending of the guy. But looking at his career numbers and splits, slow starter doesn’t do the man justice.
I’m now convinced that Blake Snell is probably the smartest baseball player there is, at the way he has absolutely gamed the game of baseball in order to make as much money as he can, with the least amount of effort possible. I mean, the guy streams video games in his downtime, gaming is nothing outside of his realm of interests, and it’s apparent that he’s brought that mentality into his career strategy.
Looking over his game logs over the last few seasons, which were coincidentally the most critical years in terms of showcasing himself in preparation for free agency, his Aprils have as many L’s as the 2024 Chicago White Sox, and he looks like shit; can’t get more than five innings, giving up lots of runs, mundane strikeout numbers.
But then July hits each year, Snell’s fairy godmother materializes out of nowhere and turns him into fucking Nolan Ryan. He starts piling up strikeouts, the inning numbers start turning from 5.0 to 7.0, and the team starts piling up W’s like they’re the 1996 Chicago Bulls.
This isn’t hyperbole, there really is that drastic of a split between the first halves and second halves of his seasons, career-wide:
1st Halves: 28-39 W-L, 3.98 ERA, 1.339 WHIP, 10.9 K/9
2nd Halves: 41-17 W-L, 2.41 ERA, 1.097 WHIP, 11.4 K/9
Now I know all these numbers don’t mean a thing to anyone who doesn’t follow baseball, but what it really says is that Blake Snell is trash in the first half of most seasons, and turns into a fucking demi-god in the second half. He walks fewer guys, strikes out more guys, and the team just flat out wins.
And the thing is, I don’t think this is coincidental, I don’t think this is fluky, I think it’s entirely by design and mostly deliberate by Blake Snell. It’s no secret in the world of professional sports that athletes tend to metaphorically hit the NOS during their walk-years, and there’s mountains of evidence that exist these days to justify such a notion. It’s also no secret that professional sport is influenced tremendously by recency bias, where the most recent version of an athlete is the one to consider when it comes time to negotiate dolla-dollas.
I may not be a fan of Blake Snell’s perceived-by-me money-grubbing ways, but I see you, Balakey. I kind of respect the cerebral approach to optimizing his earning capabilities. I’m not going to poo-poo on a guy’s effort to make as much money as he can, but at the same time, I’m not going to also not think that it does seem crappy to the teams, the fans of those teams, and those who root for him, to often be knowing that unless it’s July or later, he’s probably holding something back and not trying his hardest, because as he’s demonstrated for us all over the last few years, those April-May-June starts definitely don’t mean as much as the months July and on.
