SAN FRANCISCO — Some major-league players will use a hand truck after boxing up their lockers at the end of the season. Blake Snell appeared in need of a forklift Saturday afternoon.
Snell, a noted sneakerhead and cleats collector, stood underneath a tower of cardboard boxes so tall that they might have violated building codes. His Giants locker was mostly cleaned out. His cleats were all packed up. He’d laced them for the last time this season.
Snell, who intends to opt out of a $30 million salary and test free agency again this winter, scratched himself from his scheduled start on Saturday. The Giants announced late Friday night that right-hander Tristan Beck would take the ball in Snell’s place against the St. Louis Cardinals.
The late scratch punctuated a remarkably odd season that involved the use of every shifted keystroke: question marks for a first half defined by injuries and inconsistency, exclamation points for a second half that might have been even more dominant than his Cy Young Award-winning run the previous season with the San Diego Padres, dollar signs for the $32 million that the Giants paid him to make just 20 starts, and perhaps a few more — #@&*% should cover it — for the frustration felt by a front office and coaching staff tasked with managing a player who was capable of so much brilliance yet came with an annoyance of special instructions attached to him.
“Sure, we would have liked him to (start on Saturday),” said Giants manager Bob Melvin, who also managed Snell in San Diego last year. “But he came to the decision that was best for him.”
In that regard, Snell acted with consistency and predictability. He said he would have pitched Saturday to protect the integrity of the game if either team were competing to qualify for the playoffs or to improve their potential seeding. He opted against taking the mound after “talking about it with people very close to me and thought that this was best.”
“We’re not playing a playoff team,” Snell said. “This game has no meaning. I think it was just probably the best case.”
And the Giants were OK with that?
“To me, yeah, fine,” Snell said. “They’re understanding of it and my position.”
The game was not totally meaningless, though. The Giants needed to win Saturday and Sunday to finish with a .500 record — a cosmetic goal, perhaps, but also a matter of pride for coaches and players who want to end the year on a positive note. There’s also the matter of representing themselves well against the Cardinals, who were 4-0 against the Giants this season and dealt them a stinging loss in the Negro Leagues tribute game at Rickwood Field in June.
Additionally, the Giants drew a near-sellout crowd of 36,328 on Saturday and are trying to leave a decent final impression on fans who probably won’t break the internet when 2025 tickets go on sale. And there’s little doubt that the paying customers on Saturday would have preferred to watch Snell finish what has been an entertaining and near-historic second-half run. The 31-year-old left-hander is 5-0 with a 1.23 ERA in 14 starts since July 9, including a no-hitter Aug. 2 at Cincinnati; he has held batters to an unreal .123 average over that span.
Then there’s the matter of Snell’s prioritizing his future earnings at a time when the Giants are paying him $1.5 million on a per-start basis. They essentially paid him that much on Saturday to box up his shoe collection.
But the Giants can only be so annoyed with Snell’s predilections. He was behaving the way he always has — just as Joc Pederson, whose clubhouse joviality didn’t play as well on a losing team last year, was behaving the way he always has. The Giants knew what they were getting, for better and for worse, when they signed both players.
Snell is well-liked in the Giants clubhouse. He puts on no airs. His personality is refreshingly different. He is just as likely to become best pals with a clubhouse attendant or security guard as a veteran teammate. He says he loved his time with the Giants and hopes to re-sign. Melvin said he is open to it as well. A manager will almost always take a player whose on-field contributions more than offset any headaches that they cause.
But when the Giants jumped the market to sign third baseman Matt Chapman to a six-year, $151 million extension earlier this month, they lauded his durability and willingness to play every day. Clearly, they value players who do not have to be convinced to take the field. Or to stay out there.
Snell sought to change that narrative Aug. 2, when he no-hit the Reds while throwing the first complete game of his career. (Over previous seasons, he’d taken himself out of two no-hit bids after seven innings.) He threw 114 pitches that day, which was the second most in a start in his career. Two starts later, he threw 114 pitches again.
Blake Snell tosses the 18th no-hitter in @SFGiants history! pic.twitter.com/KVS3tml6CR
— MLB (@MLB) August 3, 2024
But he also took himself out after a 42-pitch first inning in a Sept. 5 start against Arizona. He has been, and continues to be, a pitcher who dictates the terms of his usage. And backing out of Saturday’s start did little to change that perception.
Those perceptions might have put a damper on Snell’s market last winter, when he was coming off a Cy Young Award-winning season but had to settle for a two-year, $62 million contract with an opt-out that he signed on March 18. He said he expects the market will be more robust this time around — and he hopes that the Giants will be among the interested teams.
“Honestly I’m interested to see what Farhan (Zaidi) says when the season ends, have that conversation, and then from there see where we go, where we pivot,” Snell said. “Last year was a really good year from me, Cy Young and all that. They just wanted to see me continuing to show dominance, which I believe I showed. So I believe that would make the market different. I’m definitely curious what Farhan will say, what ownership will say here. See where we go from there.”
Zaidi might not be in charge for much longer, though. Even if the Giants retain him as their president of baseball operations, Zaidi acknowledged earlier this week that Snell’s market will be very competitive.
“Maybe we have a seat at the table,” Zaidi said. “But it’s gonna be a big table.”
Signing Snell in March took the Giants over the luxury tax threshold ($237 million) for the first time since 2017. It also cost the Giants their third-round pick in this year’s amateur draft. But the biggest penalty might have been incurred because of the late timing of the deal. The Giants carried Snell on their active roster to begin the season because both he and agent Scott Boras had expressed confidence that the left-hander could fold into the rotation in time for the second series of the season against the Los Angeles Dodgers, a team Snell dominated the previous year.
But Snell wasn’t ready. When he tried to cushion his debut with a home start against the Washington Nationals on April 8, it didn’t go well. Snell had a 9.51 ERA in his first six starts before aggravating a groin injury that required two stints on the injured list. The Giants went 12-2 in Snell’s last 14 starts. But they also lost each of their first seven games with Snell on the mound or with another pitcher taking his turn.
Looking back, does Snell regret telling the Giants that he would be ready to pitch earlier than he was? Would he have done anything differently?
“I wouldn’t change a thing,” he said. “It all happened for a reason. For me, wanting to change anything that happened, I feel like would be wrong. It all happened the way it should have happened. I believe that. And I learned from all of it.
“I’ve never been in that position (after signing in March). And what I thought when I said I was ready was wrong. But I really did believe I was ready. I worked as hard as I could away from spring training, doing everything I could to be ready. And in those moments when I said I wasn’t ready, it was the truth. I wasn’t. There’s no way for me to justify, ‘Oh, I’m ready,’ and then go face big-league hitters and be like, ‘Wow, I’m not even close to where I thought I was.’ And I had those conversations. So no, I wouldn’t undo a thing. I think it all happened the right way, the way it was supposed to happen. I learned a lot. I learned a lot about myself, learned about just being smarter next time. Hopefully I don’t have to go through that. Hopefully I’m on a team a long time and just really lock and invest and be the best I can be when I start.”
Melvin said he was satisfied that Snell did everything he could to be ready on time.
“It sort of had to happen that way,” Melvin said. “We signed him for a reason with the expectation he was going to be ready to pitch. It was pretty evident that he wasn’t and that we were going to have to spoon-feed him in there. Then the injury occurred and there were some outings that didn’t go very well. First halves haven’t been his best to begin with, but then this year, with all that transpired and coming in as late as he did, it certainly wasn’t perfect.
“But then he got the proper amount of rehab games where he felt good about where he was going forward. And since that point, he’s taken off and been in a good head space. So early on, he maybe wasn’t as comfortable pitching that quickly. But look, it was what it was. We signed him late and he gave his best effort.”
There’s a lesson that all parties appear to agree upon: Signing a starting pitcher in spring training can have detrimental effects.
“The offseason in general was different for a lot of signees,” Melvin said. “I don’t know if there’s anything we could have done differently. But do you learn that maybe signing guys late has ramifications? Based on what we saw this year, maybe, yeah. But again, I’m not sure we could have done anything different. These are the guys we were targeting. They were just late signs.”
Snell said he expects a swifter resolution to his free agency this time.
“I finished strong, finished how I know I can pitch,” he said. “Yeah, definitely looking forward to having a spring training. It’s all I can think about. I can’t wait to have a full spring training, a full year. I really like where I’m at mentally, I like where I’m at physically. … Hopefully next year, we’re playing till the end of October.”
Melvin ranked Snell’s final 14-start run ahead of any he’s ever witnessed.
“I’ve been around some really good pitchers — Randy Johnson, Curt Schilling — and I don’t ever remember this kind of a run,” Melvin said. “It’s as good as I’ve seen, as anybody has seen. After a rocky start, injuries and so forth, he put a lot of work in to get himself in this position. So give him credit for that. It’s been an incredible run.”
What is Snell looking for in his next team?
“Just respect, loyalty to me and what I want,” he said. “I don’t think I’m asking for anything more than that. I just want a place where I can be for a long time (where) I can really give my all to be the best me I can be and also be on a team that’s going to get to the playoffs. I’ve got to win. That’s where I’m at. We got to find ways to win, have players here that win. There’s nothing like playoff baseball. It’s the funnest time. I’ve never had more fun than that.”
And if a team offers the long-term contract that failed to materialize last winter? If his impending free agency is no longer front of mind? Would he be less inclined to prioritize self-preservation when deciding when and how much he is willing to pitch?
“Yeah, I’m pitching,” Snell said. “All I want to do is pitch. It sucks too because I have to be smart. It’s just where I’m at right now. Once I sign that deal, it’s just pitching, pitching, pitching. I love doing that. It’s what I truly care about.
“This was just a decision (on Saturday) that we thought was best and I feel a lot of people would agree with me. People can disagree, but the opinions that are close to me matter most. I really believe we made the right decision in this. Moving forward, I hope that we never have to think about that decision ever again and we can just play ball.”
With Snell, there is always a lot to unpack.
(Photo: Ed Zurga / Getty Images)
