SNELL SAYS HE’S READY TO GO DEEPER IN GAMES
He’s eager to face opposing lineups a third or fourth time
Blake Snell won the American League Cy Young Award in 2018.
The left-hander ranks among the best starting pitchers in the majors over the past three seasons, according to virtually every significant statistic by which a staff ace would be thusly labeled.
Sixth in ERA, sixth in batting average allowed, sixth in strikeout percentage, 13th in WHIP (walks and hits per innings pitched) and 13th in FIP (fielding independent pitching). On the lists of leaders, his name is among the deGroms and Coles and Scherzers and Bauers. Except in one category. Snell ranks 60th in innings pitched since 2018.
That could change now that he is with the Padres, having been acquired in a Sunday trade that sent three highly rated prospects and catcher Francisco Mejia to the Tampa Bay Rays.
“My thoughts on being able to push it and challenge myself and go a third time through the order, I’m very excited about it,” Snell said this week. “I believe in myself
a lot. I believe I put the work in to face a lineup three or four times. I know I’m going to get the opportunity here. I know they’re going to trust me and let me go.”
The controversial yanking of Snell with one out in the sixth inning after he had allowed his second hit in Game 6 of the World Series was merely a big-stage exemplification of the Rays’ pitching philosophy. It is too much to say the Rays don’t believe in starting pitching. But they certainly are devout believers in relief pitching.
No team in baseball had fewer quality starts in 2020 than the Rays’ seven. Over the past three seasons, only the Angels (90) have fewer quality starts than the Rays (99).
This is on purpose. The Rays are credited with essentially inventing the “opener,” a reliever who serves as a starter but faces a finite number of batters before giving way to a traditional starter or long reliever. They have been the most effective team employing the strategy, using a rotating cast of hard-throwing relief pitchers to rank among MLB’s top staffs over the past three seasons — or since they began regularly employing the opener along with all but forbidding the idea of a starting pitcher facing a lineup a third time.
Since ’ 18, no team has had their starting pitchers face fewer batters a third time in a game.
It also should be noted the Rays won 90 games in 2018, 96 the next season and went to the World Series this year.
“I’ve gotten past it to the point where I don’t think about it,” Snell said of Game 6, in which he was visibly upset at being pulled. “I know how Kevin Cash manages. I respect him. I’ve always trusted him. He knows how to win. We got to the World Series because we won. … I wanted to be out there; I wanted to do everything I can to try to help the team win.”
He’ll get that chance now, as he comes to a team with a more orthodox approach to its use of starters.
“A lot of that will depend on Blake and where he’s at,” Padres General Manager A.J. Preller said. “I think from our standpoint, in general throughout the organization, we try not to put limitations on guys. … You don’t want to limit anybody. You don’t know what guys are capable of. With Blake, he’s an
extreme talent. He’s a guy that obviously has been the best pitcher in the game with the Cy Young in 2018. Everybody saw what he did in the World Series.
“When you have a talent like that and a competitor like that, I think we’re going to be open-minded to all kinds of different possibilities. We’re going to be smart and we’re going to challenge him. Ultimately if he’s prepared and able to handle what we put in front of him in terms of how many innings and how deep he goes, I think that will take care of itself.”
Snell did not pitch a full six innings in any of his 17 starts (including the postseason) in 2020 and has pitched into the seventh inning just twice in the past two seasons. He has never gone more than 71⁄ innings
3 in any of his 108 career starts and has pitched into the eighth just four times (none since 2017).
This reality is not something Snell denies nor seems to hide from. Even as he was blindsided by the trade from the organization that drafted him in 2011, he has clearly thought about what this move means and the work that is ahead. The Padres will, through spring training and a half-dozen or so starts in the regular season, likely limit his workload.
“I know starting the season I’m going to be building my arm up,” he said. “Once I get to the point where I’m built up, I’m comfortable and ready to go, that’s when I’ll start to push deep in ballgames. But just knowing myself, what I’ve done my whole career, I’ve got to be smart. I’ve got build to that.
“It might take a while to build where I want to be. … I know after that, I’m going to start really pushing it. I feel really good. Hopefully from that point on, I can go eight, nine and start to really challenge myself and see how good I really am and what I can do when I’ve got to see these guys three or four times.”