It’s the 6th Inning of Game 6 of the 2020 World Series, the Rays are winning 1-0. Blake Snell has fanned 9 batters through 5 ⅓ IP, giving up just two hits on 73 pitches. Kevin Cash walks out of the dugout and calls for a pitching change. The Rays end up losing the game 3-1 and lose the World Series. No one knew it at the time, but it would be last time Blake Snell pitched for the Tampa Bay Rays.
There it is, the biggest offseason move so far and it came out nowhere! The former Cy Young award winner and ace of the reigning American League champion Tampa Bay Rays has been traded to San Diego for a package of prospects. Blake Snell went 4-2 and pitched to a 3.24 ERA in 11 starts in 2020. In 2018 Blake Snell was an All-Star and won the Cy Young award after he went 21-5 and pitched to an absurd 1.89 ERA with a K/BB of 221/64 in 180.2 IP. Blake Snell signed a contract extension in 2019 for 5yr/$50m and now has 3 years left on that deal and is set to be a FA in 2024. This is a huge move for the Padres as they get their new ace and send a message to the Dodgers that the Padres are here to win and win now. The Padres made a move at the 2020 trade deadline to acquire Mike Clevinger from Cleveland but unfortunately he will miss all of 2021 due to injury. Even without Clevinger the Padres still have a stacked rotation for 2021 with Snell leading the charge followed by Dinelson Lamet, Chris Paddack, Zach Davies and Mackenzie Gore waiting in the wings along with other young stud pitchers who are ready to go. The Padres rotation will only get better in 2022 when Clevinger comes back and lets not forget, the Padres are still in the running to sign Trevor Bauer this offseason.
Blake Snell was pretty vocal during the regular season and postseason that he was unhappy with how Kevin Cash was managing the pitching, specifically pitch count when a pitcher is dealing. Kevin Cash sticks to his book when it comes to managing pitching during the game, it doesn’t matter to him if a pitcher has a one-hitter in the 6th inning on 65 pitches, he’s not letting him go through the lineup more than twice. When Snell got vocal about his issues it became pretty clear that Snell wanted out of Tampa Bay and the situation in the World Series only made it worse. The Rays also have a tendency to not spend big so Snell being unhappy gave the Rays a reason to get rid of $10M of the payroll for 2021.
The Padres have a very young starting rotation with solid arms, the best part about their rotation is that they aren’t owed a lot of money yet. The Padres will owe Snell $39M over the next three seasons. At 28 years old, if Snell was a free agent this year he would make north of $100M easily but instead the Padres will only pay him $10M a year for the next three years.
The Padres making the trade for Snell shows that they are going all in and are looking to win now. This acquisition makes them a much bigger threat to the Dodgers in the west and we all saw in the World Series that the Dodgers had a tough time facing Snell. The Padres have made a pretty significant move in the past 5 off-seasons and are looking to put it all together in the next two-three years and signs are showing that they might not be done yet this off-season. It should be interesting to see how this plays out for the Padres.
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