Dodgers’ Snell: ‘This is where you want to play’

Alden Gonzalez, ESPN Staff WriterDec 3, 2024, 08:50 PM ET

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LOS ANGELES — Blake Snell donned a white Los Angeles Dodgers jersey with a red No. 7 on the back for the first time Tuesday, representing the latest high-priced free agent to sign with a franchise now coming off a championship.

Snell’s five-year, $182 million contract — with $52 million up front and another $66 million deferred through 2046 — marked the fourth nine-figure signing the Dodgers have consummated over the past 12 months, following Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Tyler Glasnow.

All three of those aforementioned players will be in the Dodgers’ rotation in 2025, but they all bring varying levels of injury concerns. Snell himself has faced durability questions throughout his career, most of them aimed at an inability to pitch deep into games, but he also brings another frontline starter to a staff that, at full strength, might be the best in the sport. And though he’ll celebrate his 32nd birthday on Wednesday, the Dodgers believe he can be even better.

“I’ve known him since he was 18 years old,” said Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman, the longtime Tampa Bay Rays exec who had a hand in drafting Snell 52nd overall out of high school in 2011.

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“To watch his journey, watch the incredible success that he’s had, has been very special. And with a guy that’s enjoyed that much success, usually in major league free agency you’re buying the back side of a guy’s career, the accomplishments that they’ve had. And with Blake, one thing that’s really exciting for us is that, for as much success as he’s had, we feel like there’s more in there, and a lot of upside beyond what he’s done to this point, and the impact he can have on us in our quest to win a World Series this year and as many years as we can see out.”

The first championship for this era’s Dodgers came against Snell’s Rays in the 2020 World Series. Snell started Game 6 and was famously removed after giving up his first hit with one out in the sixth inning, triggering the Dodgers’ championship-clinching comeback.

Snell spent the next three years with the San Diego Padres, the Dodgers’ emergent rival, and finished that stretch by winning his second Cy Young Award, going 14-9 with a 2.25 ERA in 2023. He became a free agent the ensuing offseason and expected to sign a massive contract, but the offers did not come. It wasn’t until the middle of March that Snell agreed to a far lesser deal with the San Francisco Giants, one that guaranteed him $62 million for two seasons and gave him the ability to opt out after 2024.

“Clubs weren’t interested,” Snell’s agent, Scott Boras, said. “They just didn’t call. The market for free agents started maybe in the middle of February. It was that different. People like to register that it has something to do with me; I’m just a functionary of a system.”

A shortened spring training was followed by an arduous first three months in 2024, during which Snell’s ERA ballooned to 9.51. Then Snell suddenly dominated once again. From the start of July to the end of September, he threw a no-hitter, completed at least six innings in 10 of 14 starts and posted a 1.23 ERA with 114 strikeouts and 30 walks in 80⅓ innings. Shortly after Snell opted out, the Dodgers, who came close to signing him before he chose the Giants last spring, made him their foremost priority.

“It was really easy, just because me and (partner) Haeley wanted to live here,” Snell said of his decision to join the Dodgers. “It’s something we’ve been talking about for a while. And when you look at the team, you look at what they’ve built, what they’re doing, it’s just something you want to be a part of. Look at the first three hitters in the lineup. It’s tough to go against. So to be on the other side and know they’re going to be hitting for me, it’s pretty exciting.”

Snell was referencing Ohtani, Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman, core pieces of the sport’s most star-studded roster. Those three, along with Snell, Glasnow and Yamamoto, give the Dodgers six players with contracts totaling more than $1.87 billion — and a lot of that money will be paid out much later.

Betts, Freeman, Snell and Ohtani especially all carry deferred money on their contracts. So does utility man Tommy Edman, who was signed to a five-year, $74 million extension last week. And so does catcher Will Smith, signed to a 10-year, $140 million extension in January.

Blake Snell puts on his new jersey as he is joined by Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman, the longtime Tampa Bay Rays executive who had a hand in drafting Snell out of high school in 2011. Jae C. Hong/AP

The Dodgers will owe those seven players more than $1 billion in deferred payments from 2028 to 2046.

“It’s just a lever,” Friedman said. “We’ve talked about this. We’ve done deals recently that don’t have it, we’ve done deals that do. In a negotiation I think it’s always challenging and so you’re looking to any lever you possibly can to help get to a point where there is overlap. There are times where that deal lines up in a more straightforward way, there’s times where it’s less straightforward. Including deferrals helps as a lever to find that overlap. It’s been a useful tool for us. But we have no hard-and-fast rule. We just like to get deals done.”

The Snell signing marked the second time in major league history that the reigning World Series champions acquired the reigning Cy Young Award winner in the ensuing offseason, following the New York Yankees‘ acquisition of Roger Clemens in 1999.

Despite his age, Snell secured the third-largest contract ever for a left-handed pitcher — largely because the stuff and the command remain elite enough that the Dodgers believe their decorated pitching infrastructure can take him to an even higher level.

Snell’s 2.03 ERA in seven career starts at Dodger Stadium also didn’t hurt.

“Being in L.A., the pressure is always on,” Snell said. “I like that. Living here, it’s pretty amazing, the opportunities. But being able to pitch in a packed stadium, you know, you make moments for people, and this is where you want to play. I don’t think there’s a better situation that you could be in than being right here.”

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