Blake Snell 2024 Player Outlook: Reigning NL Cy Young Winner Remains High-Risk, High-Reward Pick After Jumping Ship
1 month agoSan Francisco Giants starting pitcher Blake Snell appeared to be showing early in 2023 that his 2018 Cy Young Award-winning season was an aberration, submitting a 5.40 ERA through his first nine starts of the year. Snell flipped that script in a hurry, however, embarking on the warpath to his second career Cy Young trophy with a brilliant final 23 appearances. Over this period, the former Tampa Bay Ray notched a 1.20 ERA (2.74 FIP) and 186:72 K:BB in 135 innings. Although he stumbled a bit in August, Snell tossed at least five frames in each of these showings, surrendering one run or less in 17 of them. Snell's Achilles heel was an obvious one; his league-worst 99 walks prevented him from delivering more length for the injury-plagued San Diego Padres rotation. While Snell's 31.4% strikeout rate sat in the top six percent of baseball, and he ranked first in MLB with 5.8 hits per nine innings, his lack of control lent itself to one of Statcast's highest contrasts in actual (2.25) and expected ERAs (3.79). All told, risk tolerance is the name of the game when it comes to drafting Snell in 2024. The two-time ERA title holder has three campaigns with an ERA of 4.04 or worse in his career. Due to this inconsistency, Snell faced a hesitant market in free agency this offseason based on his desired contract but was finally able to net a two-year, $62 million deal on March 18 to land with a division rival at another pitcher-friendly ballpark in the Bay Area. That leaves the 31-year-old strikeout machine as a high-risk, high-reward investment in fantasy drafts for his bat-missing upside, but daily implosion downside.