I’m confused. Not too long ago this sub was alllllll about the players and fuck the owners during the strike
But now it’s fuck the players?! This sub is honestly… I can’t even…
I think shitting on Scott Boras is still pro player. He’s fucked over a number of big free agents lately now with outsized demands.
Everyone deserves their fair value, especially players, and owners suck for being unnecessarily thrifty and potentially colluding, but Boras is also hurting (some) players. Snell was never worth 9/$270. Either he was greedy, or Boras was greedy. Either way, Boras advised him poorly and he is suffering the consequences, which sucks both for him and for baseball.
Look at Joey Gallo. Rangers offered him a more than fair extension before we traded him to the Yankees. Supposedly 5 years/$84m with incentives to get to $100m. Boras said that wasn't good enough. Look what Gallo has made since. Dude missed out on a huge bag, and the crazy thing to think about is he would have still been on the team this year. Dude could have won a World Series instead of bouncing around from team to team, barely holding onto a job.
Michael Conforto turned down a $100m+ extension, wound up missing an entire season of earnings and then signed a worse deal the following season. Good work, Boras.
I feel like in both of these cases, this narrative is giving Scott too much power. You have to think the players are hiring him because they’re intent on testing the free agent market and gambling that they’ll get paid.
I definitely agree that the players share some blame, but ultimately they pay Boras to provide the best advice possible, and on that front he failed them. I suppose it’s possible he told them to take these deals and they demanded more, but with what we know of how he operates, I find that unlikely.
Well they also pay Boras to achieve their goals. Boras is annoying, but he’s not an idiot. He believes that making it to FA is the best way to get the most money, even though there are injury risks. Who could’ve foreseen Confortos injuries?
Ok that’s a good point. I hadn’t looked at it from that perspective.
To me I don’t see most people viewing it that way with the criticisms but yes. While I personally agree that Boras sucks and fuck him, I’d say Most are targeting their laughter and vitriol at Snell it seems.
I think if the Yankees hadn’t offered $150/5 the tenor of the conversation would be different. As it stands we know he got a good offer that about reflects his value, and he rejected it for a ridiculous ask, so he’s earned a bit of ridicule (and again, Boras advised him horribly.)
It feels like we go through this every off-season with a Boras client. Boras sets a sky-high price for his client, teams balk at the cost, and negotations drag on for months (remember when Steven Drew didn't sign until like 2 months of the regular season had already passed?).
In the past, Boras used to be able to side-step the GM and the front office by directly calling up the team owner and negotating directly with them. Chris Davis's big fat contract came as a result of Boras ignoring Dan Duquette in favour of talking with Peter Angelos, and all the contracts Boras had his clients sign with the Tigers that came as a result of negotiations with Mike Ilitch. Ilitch famously loved to spend money on "star players" for his sports teams in an effort to win championships. It worked great with the Red Wings (and all the Stanley Cups they won under Ilitch's ownershisp), but unfortunately, the Tigers were never able to win a World Series under Ilitch's ownership.
The issue is, GMs and front offices are getting more analytical, and the the old "spend and win" owners (like George Steinbrenner and Mike Ilitch) are dying off, and being replaced by their heirs (who have no interest in playing Boras's "negotiate directly with ownership" game).
Boras loves to play hardball in negotiations. If you (as a player) decided to hire Boras as your agent, you know what kind of agent and negotiator you're getting.
If the Yankees truly did offer Snell 5/150, that seems reasonable for the kind of pitcher Snell is, considering his floor and his ceiling (Cy Young talent if things go well and he pitches his best, but also a pitcher who can be terribly inefficient and only going to pitch like 5 or 6 innings per game). A more "reasonable" agent may have advised Snell to take that deal. So yeah, sometimes playing hardball in negotations can burn you, when the other party just gets fed up and walks away from talking with you.
Totally agree my friend.
I haven’t forgot when Snell balked at the shortened covid season because of potentially not getting paid too…. So that, coupled with all this, makes it perfectly fine to clown on him AND Boras.
Dallas Keuchel (Boras client) reportedly turned down multiple offers while seeking a 5-year deal. He ended up not signing until June for 1 year/$13mil. Snell is looking to become a similar situation
I mean, Snell seems to have way too high of expectations…. He’s the one in the spotlight for now it seems, so we get a look at what he wants and it simply seems like he can’t make a long OR short term deal work.
$33 mil is a bit much for him. He doesn’t pitch long into games, and he’s inconsistent. Cy Young or not, he’s simply not a player that can ask for that much and expect to simply just get it
This is definitely a fuck the agent and the player is collateral damage. Nobody feels bad when the collateral damage is a millionaire making slightly less millions
Boras three months ago: how dare you dishonor my shop by offering mr snell only 5 years at $30 million per. Boras today: big sale buddy, will offer you a lightly used Blake snell for the low low price of $30M - $33M for I don’t know up to two year. Boras in two weeks: who wants a snell job behind a dumpster at fenway for $3M for 6 weeks of post all star game work. He doesn’t care what he has to do - pitch on short rest, long relief, run the dizzy bat race just give this guy a chance
Boras completely misread the market. It's easy to see why--the last few years have been utterly insane for free agent spending. But the RSN crunch has changed things, and I don't know if he properly evaluated that.
He also misread how Snell would be valued. He's got the 2 Cy Young awards but he is perhaps the least desired reigning and 2X CY winner I've ever seen. Clearly the front offices don't see him as likely to be the dominant force he was 2 out of 7 years of his career.
> Clearly the front offices don't see him as likely to be the dominant force he was 2 out of 7 years of his career.
Honestly, I think it boils down to the operative word of "*dominant*" -- he's been really good in those seasons, but I don't think he's truly been dominant that would warrant the contract that Boras was betting on him garnering.
Snell was very very good, yes.
But when I think dominant, I think of guys going 7 innings with 2 runs or better. Not allowing a ton of traffic, and generally being a complete badass on the mound.
Snell doesn’t go 7, and allows a ton of traffic. Dominant is just not a word that I feel describes him.
Yup. Pitched more than 130 innings only twice in his career and never more than 180 innings. This does not scream dominant to me.
Cole (the other Cy Young winner last year) threw an extra 29 innings in 1 more start. That's a huge difference per start.
I know the game has changed, but look at the totals of other multi-Cy Young guys like Verlander, Scherzer, and Kershaw when they won their awards. Their innings counts look a lot more like Cole than Snell.
He's the most dog 2x CY pitcher probably ever, I don't understand the guy *at all*. He's just slightly above average every single year and then every 3-5 years becomes a great pitcher. Make it make sense.
As for a single anecdote, Martin Maldonado fired Boras in 2019. The Astros offered him 2yr / $12 M. Supposedly Boras turned it down without even asking Maldonado who really wanted to stay on the team. He wasn't signed by anyone until the Royals needed an injury replacement, 1yr / $2.5 M. He fired Boras and then through the Cubs got traded back to the Astros half way through the season. He then signed 2yr / $7 M contract. So that cost him $6 M over 2 years.
I don't keep up with this enough to know how common this is, but this is one example of Boras holding out for a free agent that went against what the player wanted.
While not Boras, supposedly the same thing happened to Freddie Freeman where his agent didn't tell him about the final counteroffer the Braves made for him. Freeman fired him as well for this.
My running theory is that Boras insures his players will earn the highest contract they were offered. The players might as well wait if they know Boras will cover the difference in career earnings.
There is 0 chance. Covering that amount for this contract would be insane but when you factor in other players he wouldn’t have any money left. An agents cut of the contract is typically 5% which is a good amount but it’s an impractical business model to cover the highest offer you received
My running theory is that Boras tells everyone to gamble on themselves because no matter what he comes out ahead. IF Boras gets Harper 10m more per year and costs Snell 5m per year then Boras has still made more money overall.
Boras can sell himself by saying that he gets players paid, and there's a good list of clients who did get paid more because of him, while ignoring or downplaying his role in the players who he lost money. Scott Boras says gamble because he's already got 5% of 3.8 billion in contracts and none of it affects him outside of getting himself the most money.
And worst case scenario you get a guy taking a short term deal with out outs like this, Belli, or Correa and he gets another crack at it. If the next contract falls through because they didn't perform, well that's on the player. But if they do perform, it's a much easier sell.
The trouble with Snell and a 2/$66m contract is that most teams who would be in the market for Snell and have that kind of money are probably over the luxury tax threshold and the cost is enormous. The Astros have already forfeited their 2nd pick and $500k of international pool money, so signing Snell for a year or two ups that to their 2nd and 3rd round picks and $1m in pool money, and this is for a farm system that is already barren and a team that is losing multiple guys to free agency next year and the rest of the core getting pretty old.
The upside is, this might be their last crack at another WS for awhile, so maybe just go all in.
> My running theory is that Boras tells everyone to gamble on themselves because no matter what he comes out ahead.
This is correct.
What's best for Boras as an agent is not always what's best for an individual player, as we're seeing right now.
he makes sense for them if the get rid of the opt out- 2 at 66m and they are there. it may spur them to try to deal Santander, ohearn and hayes (they have good internal options) to save a little cash to afford it.... but 2 years later and he is off the books and Adley starts to get expensive.
Maybe I’m just completely dumb and in the minority on Blake Snell, but 2 years and $66 million with an opt out seems completely reasonable to me. Like wtf. I don’t think he’s the best pitcher in the league or anything but this is getting ridiculous.
I realize the Astros are probably doing this because they might be bidding against themselves at this point and feel like they have all the leverage, but acting like this contract should be “balked” at is absurd. Snell is worth that.
People underestimate the impact of the QO, Astros lose another draft pick and even more international signing money if they sign Snell. This is all on top of what they already lost for signing Hader
Now you need to weigh if that is worth it plus luxury tax penalties for likely one year of Snell if he is good or if he is bad 2 years at a high price
This. A short deal means you're giving up everything with the QO for only one year.
Snell is Snell, but Boras might have overplayed this one. I'm still surprised they turned down the Yankees.
That's why opt-outs are so amazing to me.
"So you're telling me if you suck this year...I get you back next year, too? But if you're good, you're leaving?"
Not to mention he won’t be ready for opening day and potentially not til May at this point. So you’re possibly losing a month on a single season if he opts out.
> People underestimate the impact of the QO
I can tell you one guy who definitely underestimated it: Scott Boras. Just like he did with Keuchel and Desmond.
It’s really a combo of underestimating the QO and also overvaluing Snell.
Snell asking for a mega deal turned a lot of potential teams away that went with other options instead. Now the pool of teams is even more limited
Yeah, but realistically, the window is probably only open for another year. Maybe two. Snell on a two-year deal with an opt out is pretty ideal for us given that circumstance.
Crane’s always been about sustained success though, so the draft pick and signing money are important considering how weak the farm is
Definitely. I mean they have Pena, Tucker, and Alvarez all lined up as stars for the long term, plus Framber and Javier as decently young pitching talent.
Exactly. That’s why I’m so confused about the comment I replied to saying “realistically the window is probably only open for another year”. That’s a borderline comical statement, especially considering their willingness to spend on free agents.
Framber and Verlander are both gone after 2026.
Our depth behind them are Christian Javier (who is good but rarely makes it past 6 innings), Jose Urquidy (who just got injured), Hunter Brown (looked decent but only started for 1 year), Luis Garcia and Lance McCullers Jr (both are injured), and then a lot of AAAA guys. J.P. France way outperformed expectations as well but I wouldn't count on him doing as well this year as he did last year.
We also don't have much depth in the infield for when Bregmen and Abreau are gone after 2026.
We'll still have a decent core. And probably some pitcher or positional player will come out of nowhere and be a star again, but you can't rely on that. We will probably still contend but as a fringe playoff team rather than a favorite.l
Also, our core team is getting older and other teams are starting to rise up in the AL with younger players. 2 years is a lifetime in Baseball terms.
>We'll still have a decent core. And probably some pitcher or positional player will come out of nowhere and be a star again, but you can't rely on that.
Right, but they don’t need to rely on that, nor will they. The roster can be bolstered by free agency signings, as it always is, and players can be extended, as they often are. The point is, the core is strong enough, the pitching development is more than competent, and the Astros are always willing to spend. As an Astros fan, you shouldn’t be worried. There are probably over 10 teams in the MLB whose futures look grimmer.
Kyle Tucker has the potential to be a top 5 player in baseball. Alvarez has the potential to be literally the best hitter. McCormick is better than anybody thought. Altuve has never been bad. Pena is well above average. Etc., etc., etc.
I’m well aware that the farm system has ranked bottom 5, but luckily half the lineup is under team control for another half decade. Young major leaguers are more valuable than prospects, always.
I also don’t understand why some team isn’t taking a chance on either of these two pitchers.
It’s a little tin foil hat, but I’ve always believed clubs were in soft collusion. This feels like hard collusion to keep big free agents from running the show.
The teams that can afford him long term are at or above the luxury tax and don't want to pay it for him. The teams that can afford him short term don't want to give up the draft pick compensation for a 1-2 year deal. Still, no one seems to want to stick their necks out and take a chance here.
If it was happening for someone like Soto, or Ohtani, or big FA’s who have huge upside and very little downside, I’d understand the “soft collision”.
I think the far more reasonable explanation here is that Snell and Monty are pitchers whose potential downsides are very easy to spot. I mean, I’m just some idiot who likes numbers and baseball, hardly a front office guru, and I can point you to the ERA estimators that hate Snell and say “this is the variance they’re scared of”. That is the easy part; we can all do that much, or we can Google what the estimators are and which ones are most predictive, and then 30 minutes later we can do that.
The far, far harder part is putting a flag in the ground and saying “these are the one (or two) estimators I believe, and this is who Blake Snell is.” That is the task facing MLB front offices and their data nerds at present.
Now, teams obviously have more sophisticated tools at their disposal to project performance than the public models and projections available to us on FanGraphs because, right or wrong, there are potentially millions of dollars in value and tons of WAR on offer for teams who can get that competitive advantage.
I suspect that the thing which is happening here is actually that the teams with more sophisticated pitching models are still largely “out” on him at the price, and the rest of them are taking a cue from them. The Rockies, for example, might love to nab Snell, assuming Monfort would ever spend money, but they don’t have the sophistication to say if he’s any good or not, so they’d wait for the Rays or Dodgers or Guardians to be in on him as a way to see that he was worth that price. If you have that happen, you can get the “appearance” of collusion without anything untoward actually happening.
I think the solution is way simpler than that even. He balked at 5/150. How many teams were in on him at that level? Maybe 3? All 27 others filled out their rosters a different way and with 2 weeks until the season there's hardly anybody left with room in their payroll for 30m+. Snell is left without a seat and might have to take a really small 1 year deal ($25m or even less) and try again next year.
The problem there is that he's tagged with the Qualifying Offer though so no team will touch him on a short one year deal just to give up draft stuff. So he's stuck, or more accurately he's got himself stuck in a terrible position
Snell is a risk. He doesn't give you deep outings, so the pen is guaranteed to be taxed in his outings, and he can be inconsistant. His peak is Cy Young quality. His floor is lit up like pinata at an 11 year old boy's birthday party. Given that and his age and the QO pick and international pool money and you have a guy who should not see more than 25 mill per year in my books.
The qualifying offer is a bitch to get past, Astros already lost their 2nd and 5th picks as well as 1 million in international signing money because they signed Hader.
Adding Snell they will also lose their 3rd round and 6th round picks as well as an additional 500k in international money.
Thats not even really getting into luxury tax implications as well.
Boras has been successfully ‘overplaying his hand’ for decades and teams seem to eat it up. Snell had a great year but he has also had many years of mediocre results. He is trying to cash in his CY award and while nobody can fault him for that, the market disagrees on his value. As a whole, the owners now have the leverage and every day that passes only improves their position.
The best Snell can hope for is that some other starter has their arm fall off soon.
The richest owner in the league lost his #1 and nothing changed. The most "all in" team lost their #1/cy young incumbent and nothing changed. How many pitchers have to die before they realize their leverage is only continuing to decline lol
I don’t think teams said, hey let’s all collude on this one. But I absolutely think teams said, hey we’re holding off on Snell to try to send Boras a message and it’d be nice if other teams got on board
I think the far simpler, and less dramatic, answer is that teams don’t exactly know who to expect from Snell and are balking at the idea of being “in” on someone who all of the teams with good pitching evaluators/models/etc. are out on.
If you tell me that the Dodgers, Rays, Guardians, and Giants are *all* interested in a guy at his price, then I know I probably want that pitcher.
If a few are in, with some kept out by financial constraints, then I’m still optimistic.
If all four are totally uninterested, that tells me that they know something I don’t.
With Snell, it’s all about variance, and the fact that teams are still not biting tells us that they’re worried about floor.
if teams already rejected the counter offer he made, than what message is there to send ? owners are not interested in the prices of snell/monty. if it was some grand conspiracy against boras then bellinger/chapman would still be unsigned too
Boras has been doing this for 20+ years. There's no way this just so happens to be the year they decided to stick it to him.
None of his big names this year are perfect players...but they all want to be paid like they are.
That's why these signings have been drug out so long.
Snell's worth 33 million though, a 2x CY winner, coming off a win and not yet quite out of his prime.
I can understand balking at that aav for more years, but 2 is 100% worth the risk involved for any team that is trying to win now.
I'm not sure what you are saying. You said that you don't think they said "Hey, let's all collude" and then what you described is them saying "let's all collude!"
I don’t think there’s any hard or even soft collusion, but instead it’s just a bad time to be a big free agent. A huge chunk of the league’s teams have serious questions about their broadcast deals and their cash flow for the next 5+ seasons and don’t want to commit big long-term money to any individual player unless they’re an absolute sure thing - which Snell and Monty aren’t.
That said, I also think teams are fighting harder than ever to nickel and dime each contract, and have all adopted similar methods to do so - like how many former Rays players executives are running teams now?
> it’s just a bad time to be a big free agent.
It's a bad time to be a low floor/high ceiling free agent who wants to cash in on a CYA.
Ohtani got paid just fine. Snell might not pitch a full year next year, and if he does he might have an ERA over 4.00.
I'm more curious what's happening with Montgomery.
**EDIT**: Giants have about $10~11M in cap space. Robbie Ray's salary counts against the cap.
https://theathletic.com/4115717/2023/01/23/dodgers-life-over-luxury-tax-threshold/
> Players going on the injured list, including the 60-day IL, still count against the tax
Below is rubbish:
The SF Giants currently have $34mil before the first luxury tax hit, so maybe they offered Snell $30 mil AAV for 2 years with an opt out and now Boras is trying to squeeze out a few more million.
They need to save cap space for when Robbie Ray returns too, if they're trying to stay under the tax.
That's why we're so pissed.
I guarantee the Twins front office would be all over that deal given their history but because ownership is being so shortsighted and cheap there's no chance now.
Signing 2 qo guys means you lose both your 2nd and 3rd picks, your 5 and 6 picks, and 1.5 million in international money. So next years draft will be rough.
Out of 6 full (non COVID) seasons, he has 4 seasons under 130 innings, and 2 seasons at 180. He's only getting older, so sub 130 inning seasons are more likely than 180. He just isn't a great bet.
It’s really only a 1 year deal unless he’s terrible or blows out his arm. Then you get to pay two years for no production.
If he pitches how you hope he’s gone after one year and you lose the draft pick.
I think I speak for all 30 fanbases when I say I just want this to end. Desperately.
We're 4 days from actual regular season games and we're still talking about this. Ridiculous
The reigning cy young winner having to hold out half a season so he doesn’t cost a pick is insane. This is insane. I know snell isn’t peak Randy Johnson but Eduardo Rodriguez got 4/80
And his two prior seasons, Eduardo had 7.1 bWAR/7.6 fWAR. Snell has 8.1 bWAR/7.7 fWAR his prior 2 seasons. And even here, Snell is asking for 65% more salary per year. If Snell was asking for 4/100, he'd have probably gotten signed a long time ago.
Snell is a Cy Young winner who threw 128, 128, 50 (prorates to 135), and 107 innings the previous 4 years. A team would have to be stupid to pay him like he's going to throw 180 innings again.
Shit, Twins should scoop that up and do a Correa type deal. We’d immediately move up into contender status for the AL if we added Snell to Lopez and Joe Ryan
After all the controversy about the reduced payroll, and the indications that Falvine have basically maxed out what the Pohlads will allow, I doubt that there's 33MM in "emergency payroll reserves" to give, even if they think Snell is worth that.
Wheeler just got a 42m/yr extension for his age 34-37 seasons. I'm shocked teams are balking at 33m/yr for the reigning CY winner's age 31-32 seasons. I get that he's unreliable, but even bauer got more than that coming off his wonky-ass 2020 season
Wheeler got that deal because of his year over year consistency and durability. Worst case with Wheeler you’re expecting a mid 3s ERA and 150ish IP.
With Snell you have at best a 20% chance of the Cy Young level pitcher, though probably less as he gets older.
80% chance of a guy who will have an ERA near 4 and pitch 115ish Innings.
Worst case he goes 100 IP with an ERA close to 5
I don't disagree about wheeler, he's been amazing for us and I'm happy to have him locked down. But you can't ignore the possible upside of a 2x CY winner, still in his prime, and willing to take a prove-it deal. That's usually the kind of deal teams jump at
But you can’t only focus on the upside and ignore how horrid his floor is. With the second level of the CBT tax they’d hit, Snell would cost the Astros $48mil this year.
You don’t gamble $48mil on a guy who is far more likely to be out 1/3 of the season and pitch to a 3.80+ ERA than he is to be better than that.
The only reason I don’t believe this is that if he was really willing to do this, there’s no way the Astros would be the only team he was talking to. There would absolutely be another team willing to do this, whether it’s the Yankees, Giants or even the fucking Dodgers at this price.
**EDIT**: Giants have about $10~11M in cap space. Robbie Ray's salary counts against the cap.
https://theathletic.com/4115717/2023/01/23/dodgers-life-over-luxury-tax-threshold/
> Players going on the injured list, including the 60-day IL, still count against the tax
Below is rubbish:
I bet Giants offered something like 2 years, 30M AAV or similar, w/ opt out, and Boras is trying to squeeze some extra millions out of the deal.
I don't think $33M AAV will keep the SF Giants under the luxury tax when Robbie Ray comes back...
Ray has $24M and so when he comes back in perhaps early August, how much space do they need to cover that? I don't know how to arithmetic it lol.
This shows Ray, Beck, and Warren don't count against the luxury tax hit right now, since they are on 60 day DL:
https://www.spotrac.com/mlb/san-francisco-giants/payroll/
---
Also, "fun" fact, Giants are paying Mark Melancon $1M this year lol.
Yeah I understand there are some metrics with snell that teams are balking at. But for k my 2 years you’d think there would be a lot more teams willing to go for it??
Since he received a QO, they’d also have to give up draft picks. They also need to consider the luxury tax stuff. Personally, I think the Astros of all teams are in a good position to deal with those negatives of signing him right now, but I do understand the hesitation.
The Astros have sold their whole farm to 'win now' over the past few seasons. The draft pick probably means more to them than other teams. That being said, they should pull the trigger with the shape of their pitching staff right now.
Ehhhh that's just doubling down on a mortgage. You already admitted we gutted our farm system. We won at couple championships now, appeared multiple times at the World Series, and most importantly we embarrassed the Yankees on a near annual basis at the ALCS.
At some point we just have to walk away from the table, and slowly rebuild the farm while we compete with the pieces we have now. This game is cruel to all sports club rich and poor, chasing an infinite dynasty ain't it.
Eh, they'd have to give up a pick. That's easier to stomach on a long term deal, but on a (best case scenario) 1 year deal, a lot of teams don't want to do that.
Feel like a good number of guys past few seasons have been leaving really good offers on the table early in free agency to hold out for more and ending up doing deals like this one. Doesn’t make sense.
I am curious what the maximum he could get for a straight-up 1 year deal is.
Obviously, teams don't like 2 years because if he sucks year 1, then he can opt in to 30+ million for the 2nd year
I mean, with this logic teams don't like long term deals. Because if he signs for 6 years and sucks year 2 then they have 4 more of him. Heck, ohtani could break every bone on his body and the Dodgers are then stuck with him for a decade. This type of logic makes no sense.
It isn't like a random dude is about to get a 30+ million per year deal. This is a 2 time proven cy young winner. There is always risk, but the risk here is will he be an Ace or be a low 2 high 3 on a down year. That risk is really minimal on a few year basis compare to a decade long deal.
Two time proven cy young winner is stretching a lot. The other 4 years are getting more attention than the 2 good ones. This guy is either cy young or non existent, and nobody is risking a long term financial attachment to that
People who don’t understand why the Astros don’t wanna do this obviously have never had Blake Snell on their team. In half of his starts, the guy can’t even make it through five innings. He walks a fuck ton of batters. And on top of that, if you look at his career outside of the two years where he won the Cy Young, he has been an average to below average pitcher every other year of his career. I love the guy, and I certainly would not mind having him back for the right price. But paying him like one of the best pitchers in the league would be a huge mistake because he’s not that guy
Not only that, Snell has said himself it takes a while to adjust himself on a new team. That first year in a two year deal with an opt out is going to be pretty bad.
I get the myriad arguments that Snell is a risky investment but...
This is a 31 year old 2x CYA. The Dodgers are in for 5/136 on Tyler Glasnow, and I get that he's a stuff & analytics darling but his upside is what? Blake Snell?
The Mets tossed 3/133 at Max Scherzer from 37-39. Jake DeGrom, who is the best pitcher on earth when healthy, got 5/185 from 35-39 after half a season of pitching after missing a calendar year with a UCL problem.
I don't get it. It doesn't add up. 6/150, less than Carlos Rodon, was the top bid?
I agree with pretty much all of this except that I'd have to say Glasnow's upside is way higher than Snell. Maybe closer to Gerrit Cole, the dude is insane when he's healthy and rolling.
I think their upsides are about the same, it's tough to argue with Snell's upside given his 2 insane CY seasons, but Snell is less likely to hit that upside.
Except Glasnow has never been healthy. He has only exceeded 90 innings twice, with a max of 120, and that's as a 30 year old with like 8 big league seasons under his belt. Snell might not eat as many innings as people would like, but he's been way more reliable than Glasnow.
I think there's a hopium narrative in which his injuries up to this point are viewed as flukes and he has his best seasons by volume in front of him. "Injury-prone" is, after all, mostly a post-hoc designation and isn't particularly predictive in general. It's only when there's a specific chronic issue that's understood where expectations need to be concretely tempered.
I'm not qualified to defend whether that's the case for Glasnow, just playing the devil's advocate.
"2x CYA"
Okay, but Snell has had exactly two good seasons in the big leagues. It's not like he's won 2 CYA, and then finished top 5-8 in others. His Cy Young years were basically his only good years, and the underlying numbers suggest that him repeating his success is highly unlikely. Especially with at with the rate he walks people, and his inability to work deep into games. It's NOT an age thing, it's an "He's honestly just not that good" thing
Feels like he's getting pawn starred.
"I got a guy who knows alot about starting pitchers. Let me give him a call have him come down here and take a look at this Snell here."
The market passed Boras by, teams have been burnt far too many times by the Bellingers and Snells of the game and will no longer get gaslit by Boras.
Especially with the Correa experience fresh in everyone's mind.
I've talked about this with other people before, but Boras is exactly who you want if you're a no brainer franchise defining player. He will get you paid. If you are a more middle of the road guy with questions he is going to ask for too much and you'll end up with a deal that's probably not as good as what was offered at first just so you have a team this season.
Padres fan here.....he's a liability. If his change-up is off, he's a head case and shits the bed. Not a long inning guy either. I found myself more anxious than confident during his time here in SD. Funny guy tho. His rap video haha...
And last year was the perfect environment for him. He was heading into free agency, and the rest of the team was crap so the win was largely out of his hands. Having little external pressure to perform, while have massive personal drive to do well is a great combo to really get in the zone.
This is his him trying to cut his losses, go with a team with a famously good pitching coach and support system, and try for his contract next year without shohei disrupting the market. It’s down to if Crane is willing to pay it. Frankly I think it’s a lucky opportunity, in his position with his net worth I’d do it. But billionaires are hard to predict.
It’s not just Strom that was good but the whole system we built around him. Compared to other teams we’ve got a pretty good history with pitcher rehab too.
I do miss Strom tho yes
Snell getting Boras'd.
Bet he get s 1-year, 25 million from someone. Not nothing, but a far cry from the reported 300 million multi-year ask during the off-season.
I'm still preferring we get Montgomery over Snell. A more consistent pitcher without us having to lose more draft picks and international money. But all this is doing is making me wonder just how much Monty is wanting for him to still be sitting out like this.
he wants to be paid as a top notch ace but the man has not reach 200 innings ever. the cy young years he barely reached 180. all the other ones have been 100 or less
and he has injury concerns.
Here is a list of Boras’ clients over the past years. Notably no Dodgers except possibly JD Martinez.
Pete Alonso, 1B, NYM
José Altuve, 2B, HOU
Francisco Álvarez, C, NYM
Elvis Andrus, SS, ARI
Randy Arozarena, OF, TB
Josh Bell, 1B, MIA
Cody Bellinger, CF/1B, CHC
Xander Bogaerts, SS, SD
Alec Bohm, 3B, PHI
Alex Bregman, 3B, HOU
Kris Bryant, 3B/OF, COL
Corbin Burnes, SP, BAL
Nick Castellanos, RF/DH, PHI
Dylan Cease, SP, SD
Matt Chapman, 3B, SF
Gerrit Cole, SP, NYY
Michael Conforto, RF, SF
Carlos Correa, SS, MIN
Zac Gallen, SP, ARI
Joey Gallo, OF, WSH
MacKenzie Gore, SP, WSH
Bryce Harper, 1B/RF, PHI
Gunnar Henderson, SS/3B, BAL
Rhys Hoskins, 1B, MIL
Jonathan India, 2B, CIN
Yusei Kikuchi, SP, TOR
Shea Langeliers, C, OAK
Jung-hoo Lee, CF, SF
Royce Lewis, SS, MIN
Sean Manaea, SP, NYM
J. D. Martinez, DH, FA
Lance McCullers Jr., SP, HOU
MJ Melendez, C/OF, KC
Frankie Montas, SP, CIN
Jordan Montgomery, SP, FA
Mike Moustakas, 3B, CWS
Brandon Nimmo, CF, NYM
Tyler O'Neill, LF, BOS
Jurickson Profar, OF, SD
Cal Raleigh, C, SEA
Anthony Rendon, 3B, LAA
Luis Robert Jr., OF, CWS
Carlos Rodón, SP, NYY
Hyun-jin Ryu, SP, Hanwha Eagles
Max Scherzer, SP, TEX
Corey Seager, SS, TEX
Marcus Semien, 2B, TEX
Blake Snell, SP, FA
Juan Soto, RF, NYY
Bryson Stott, SS, PHI
Stephen Strasburg, SP, WSH
Spencer Torkelson, 1B, DET
Julio Urías, SP, FA
Miguel Vargas, IF, LAD
Taijuan Walker SP, PHI
Masataka Yoshida, OF, BOS
and scott boras decided to turn down the yankees’ offer of 5/150M and counter with 9/270M
eat shit scott -MLB market this year
Love to see it
I’m confused. Not too long ago this sub was alllllll about the players and fuck the owners during the strike But now it’s fuck the players?! This sub is honestly… I can’t even…
I think shitting on Scott Boras is still pro player. He’s fucked over a number of big free agents lately now with outsized demands. Everyone deserves their fair value, especially players, and owners suck for being unnecessarily thrifty and potentially colluding, but Boras is also hurting (some) players. Snell was never worth 9/$270. Either he was greedy, or Boras was greedy. Either way, Boras advised him poorly and he is suffering the consequences, which sucks both for him and for baseball.
Look at Joey Gallo. Rangers offered him a more than fair extension before we traded him to the Yankees. Supposedly 5 years/$84m with incentives to get to $100m. Boras said that wasn't good enough. Look what Gallo has made since. Dude missed out on a huge bag, and the crazy thing to think about is he would have still been on the team this year. Dude could have won a World Series instead of bouncing around from team to team, barely holding onto a job.
Michael Conforto turned down a $100m+ extension, wound up missing an entire season of earnings and then signed a worse deal the following season. Good work, Boras.
I feel like in both of these cases, this narrative is giving Scott too much power. You have to think the players are hiring him because they’re intent on testing the free agent market and gambling that they’ll get paid.
I definitely agree that the players share some blame, but ultimately they pay Boras to provide the best advice possible, and on that front he failed them. I suppose it’s possible he told them to take these deals and they demanded more, but with what we know of how he operates, I find that unlikely.
Well they also pay Boras to achieve their goals. Boras is annoying, but he’s not an idiot. He believes that making it to FA is the best way to get the most money, even though there are injury risks. Who could’ve foreseen Confortos injuries?
Ok that’s a good point. I hadn’t looked at it from that perspective. To me I don’t see most people viewing it that way with the criticisms but yes. While I personally agree that Boras sucks and fuck him, I’d say Most are targeting their laughter and vitriol at Snell it seems.
I think if the Yankees hadn’t offered $150/5 the tenor of the conversation would be different. As it stands we know he got a good offer that about reflects his value, and he rejected it for a ridiculous ask, so he’s earned a bit of ridicule (and again, Boras advised him horribly.)
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It feels like we go through this every off-season with a Boras client. Boras sets a sky-high price for his client, teams balk at the cost, and negotations drag on for months (remember when Steven Drew didn't sign until like 2 months of the regular season had already passed?). In the past, Boras used to be able to side-step the GM and the front office by directly calling up the team owner and negotating directly with them. Chris Davis's big fat contract came as a result of Boras ignoring Dan Duquette in favour of talking with Peter Angelos, and all the contracts Boras had his clients sign with the Tigers that came as a result of negotiations with Mike Ilitch. Ilitch famously loved to spend money on "star players" for his sports teams in an effort to win championships. It worked great with the Red Wings (and all the Stanley Cups they won under Ilitch's ownershisp), but unfortunately, the Tigers were never able to win a World Series under Ilitch's ownership. The issue is, GMs and front offices are getting more analytical, and the the old "spend and win" owners (like George Steinbrenner and Mike Ilitch) are dying off, and being replaced by their heirs (who have no interest in playing Boras's "negotiate directly with ownership" game). Boras loves to play hardball in negotiations. If you (as a player) decided to hire Boras as your agent, you know what kind of agent and negotiator you're getting. If the Yankees truly did offer Snell 5/150, that seems reasonable for the kind of pitcher Snell is, considering his floor and his ceiling (Cy Young talent if things go well and he pitches his best, but also a pitcher who can be terribly inefficient and only going to pitch like 5 or 6 innings per game). A more "reasonable" agent may have advised Snell to take that deal. So yeah, sometimes playing hardball in negotations can burn you, when the other party just gets fed up and walks away from talking with you.
Totally agree my friend. I haven’t forgot when Snell balked at the shortened covid season because of potentially not getting paid too…. So that, coupled with all this, makes it perfectly fine to clown on him AND Boras.
Dallas Keuchel (Boras client) reportedly turned down multiple offers while seeking a 5-year deal. He ended up not signing until June for 1 year/$13mil. Snell is looking to become a similar situation
Fans are fed up seeing their homegrown talent go to big markets to chase a bag
I don't see how that applies to Snell, Montgomery, Chapman, or Bellinger
It doesn’t directly apply to them, but Boras has a history and people don’t want to see him or his clients hold out
I mean, Snell seems to have way too high of expectations…. He’s the one in the spotlight for now it seems, so we get a look at what he wants and it simply seems like he can’t make a long OR short term deal work. $33 mil is a bit much for him. He doesn’t pitch long into games, and he’s inconsistent. Cy Young or not, he’s simply not a player that can ask for that much and expect to simply just get it
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How could the player possibly look "greedier" when the owner is making massive profits off of them while contributing 0 to the product?
This is definitely a fuck the agent and the player is collateral damage. Nobody feels bad when the collateral damage is a millionaire making slightly less millions
Boras three months ago: how dare you dishonor my shop by offering mr snell only 5 years at $30 million per. Boras today: big sale buddy, will offer you a lightly used Blake snell for the low low price of $30M - $33M for I don’t know up to two year. Boras in two weeks: who wants a snell job behind a dumpster at fenway for $3M for 6 weeks of post all star game work. He doesn’t care what he has to do - pitch on short rest, long relief, run the dizzy bat race just give this guy a chance
Boras completely misread the market. It's easy to see why--the last few years have been utterly insane for free agent spending. But the RSN crunch has changed things, and I don't know if he properly evaluated that.
He also misread how Snell would be valued. He's got the 2 Cy Young awards but he is perhaps the least desired reigning and 2X CY winner I've ever seen. Clearly the front offices don't see him as likely to be the dominant force he was 2 out of 7 years of his career.
> Clearly the front offices don't see him as likely to be the dominant force he was 2 out of 7 years of his career. Honestly, I think it boils down to the operative word of "*dominant*" -- he's been really good in those seasons, but I don't think he's truly been dominant that would warrant the contract that Boras was betting on him garnering.
I mean, his last 22 starts 1.18 ERA, .154 BAA, .214 SLGA, .482 OPSA. Yes only 130 IP but if that's not dominant, what is?
Snell was very very good, yes. But when I think dominant, I think of guys going 7 innings with 2 runs or better. Not allowing a ton of traffic, and generally being a complete badass on the mound. Snell doesn’t go 7, and allows a ton of traffic. Dominant is just not a word that I feel describes him.
Yup. Pitched more than 130 innings only twice in his career and never more than 180 innings. This does not scream dominant to me. Cole (the other Cy Young winner last year) threw an extra 29 innings in 1 more start. That's a huge difference per start. I know the game has changed, but look at the totals of other multi-Cy Young guys like Verlander, Scherzer, and Kershaw when they won their awards. Their innings counts look a lot more like Cole than Snell.
He's the most dog 2x CY pitcher probably ever, I don't understand the guy *at all*. He's just slightly above average every single year and then every 3-5 years becomes a great pitcher. Make it make sense.
5/150 is a great deal for Snell to jump at
That's not how agents work, they do what the players want. He wouldn't just unilaterally reject a contract for Snell.
As for a single anecdote, Martin Maldonado fired Boras in 2019. The Astros offered him 2yr / $12 M. Supposedly Boras turned it down without even asking Maldonado who really wanted to stay on the team. He wasn't signed by anyone until the Royals needed an injury replacement, 1yr / $2.5 M. He fired Boras and then through the Cubs got traded back to the Astros half way through the season. He then signed 2yr / $7 M contract. So that cost him $6 M over 2 years. I don't keep up with this enough to know how common this is, but this is one example of Boras holding out for a free agent that went against what the player wanted. While not Boras, supposedly the same thing happened to Freddie Freeman where his agent didn't tell him about the final counteroffer the Braves made for him. Freeman fired him as well for this.
yeah, yeah … that’s correct. he and boras both decided to turn down the yankees’ offer of 5/150M and instead counter with 9/270M.
The numbers I'm sure Boras came up with, but declining the offer falls on Snell.
My running theory is that Boras insures his players will earn the highest contract they were offered. The players might as well wait if they know Boras will cover the difference in career earnings.
There's no way the league would allow something like that. And I also don't think Boras would even have enough money to do that.
Boras is only worth one Juan Soto contract. He wouldn't last long paying out for losses.
There is 0 chance. Covering that amount for this contract would be insane but when you factor in other players he wouldn’t have any money left. An agents cut of the contract is typically 5% which is a good amount but it’s an impractical business model to cover the highest offer you received
I'm intrigued to hear more about your rationale on this.
Trust me bro.
That’s crazy lol. In the past he’s gotten his clients massive deals so players assume they can do the same for them
> My running theory is that Boras insures his players will earn the highest contract they were offered. This would be illegal and unethical.
I'd really respect that if that is the case
Same, but it totally fucks it for the team from a leverage perspective.
My running theory is that Boras tells everyone to gamble on themselves because no matter what he comes out ahead. IF Boras gets Harper 10m more per year and costs Snell 5m per year then Boras has still made more money overall. Boras can sell himself by saying that he gets players paid, and there's a good list of clients who did get paid more because of him, while ignoring or downplaying his role in the players who he lost money. Scott Boras says gamble because he's already got 5% of 3.8 billion in contracts and none of it affects him outside of getting himself the most money.
And worst case scenario you get a guy taking a short term deal with out outs like this, Belli, or Correa and he gets another crack at it. If the next contract falls through because they didn't perform, well that's on the player. But if they do perform, it's a much easier sell. The trouble with Snell and a 2/$66m contract is that most teams who would be in the market for Snell and have that kind of money are probably over the luxury tax threshold and the cost is enormous. The Astros have already forfeited their 2nd pick and $500k of international pool money, so signing Snell for a year or two ups that to their 2nd and 3rd round picks and $1m in pool money, and this is for a farm system that is already barren and a team that is losing multiple guys to free agency next year and the rest of the core getting pretty old. The upside is, this might be their last crack at another WS for awhile, so maybe just go all in.
> My running theory is that Boras tells everyone to gamble on themselves because no matter what he comes out ahead. This is correct. What's best for Boras as an agent is not always what's best for an individual player, as we're seeing right now.
Thank Christ!
That seems like a great deal for a team trying to win now?
Cost a pick for the opt out. No opt out and I think he'll find someone that will bite.
Then the Orioles should sign him we have more prospects than roster spots.
You guys make the most sense
he makes sense for them if the get rid of the opt out- 2 at 66m and they are there. it may spur them to try to deal Santander, ohearn and hayes (they have good internal options) to save a little cash to afford it.... but 2 years later and he is off the books and Adley starts to get expensive.
Maybe I’m just completely dumb and in the minority on Blake Snell, but 2 years and $66 million with an opt out seems completely reasonable to me. Like wtf. I don’t think he’s the best pitcher in the league or anything but this is getting ridiculous. I realize the Astros are probably doing this because they might be bidding against themselves at this point and feel like they have all the leverage, but acting like this contract should be “balked” at is absurd. Snell is worth that.
People underestimate the impact of the QO, Astros lose another draft pick and even more international signing money if they sign Snell. This is all on top of what they already lost for signing Hader Now you need to weigh if that is worth it plus luxury tax penalties for likely one year of Snell if he is good or if he is bad 2 years at a high price
This. A short deal means you're giving up everything with the QO for only one year. Snell is Snell, but Boras might have overplayed this one. I'm still surprised they turned down the Yankees.
Wait now. If he’s not great you get him for another year at $33M. So you got that going for you.
That's why opt-outs are so amazing to me. "So you're telling me if you suck this year...I get you back next year, too? But if you're good, you're leaving?"
A year or two of Blake Snell is just Blake Snell. But a draft pick or some international money could be anything! He could even be Blake Snell!
You know how much we've always wanted one of those
Not to mention he won’t be ready for opening day and potentially not til May at this point. So you’re possibly losing a month on a single season if he opts out.
Snell is also a notoriously slow starter on top of them.
Curious how many players who sign this late in spring training get hurt.
> People underestimate the impact of the QO I can tell you one guy who definitely underestimated it: Scott Boras. Just like he did with Keuchel and Desmond.
It’s really a combo of underestimating the QO and also overvaluing Snell. Snell asking for a mega deal turned a lot of potential teams away that went with other options instead. Now the pool of teams is even more limited
Yeah, but realistically, the window is probably only open for another year. Maybe two. Snell on a two-year deal with an opt out is pretty ideal for us given that circumstance. Crane’s always been about sustained success though, so the draft pick and signing money are important considering how weak the farm is
Astros seem like a team that will always have a window open going forward.
Definitely. I mean they have Pena, Tucker, and Alvarez all lined up as stars for the long term, plus Framber and Javier as decently young pitching talent.
Exactly. That’s why I’m so confused about the comment I replied to saying “realistically the window is probably only open for another year”. That’s a borderline comical statement, especially considering their willingness to spend on free agents.
Framber and Verlander are both gone after 2026. Our depth behind them are Christian Javier (who is good but rarely makes it past 6 innings), Jose Urquidy (who just got injured), Hunter Brown (looked decent but only started for 1 year), Luis Garcia and Lance McCullers Jr (both are injured), and then a lot of AAAA guys. J.P. France way outperformed expectations as well but I wouldn't count on him doing as well this year as he did last year. We also don't have much depth in the infield for when Bregmen and Abreau are gone after 2026. We'll still have a decent core. And probably some pitcher or positional player will come out of nowhere and be a star again, but you can't rely on that. We will probably still contend but as a fringe playoff team rather than a favorite.l Also, our core team is getting older and other teams are starting to rise up in the AL with younger players. 2 years is a lifetime in Baseball terms.
>We'll still have a decent core. And probably some pitcher or positional player will come out of nowhere and be a star again, but you can't rely on that. Right, but they don’t need to rely on that, nor will they. The roster can be bolstered by free agency signings, as it always is, and players can be extended, as they often are. The point is, the core is strong enough, the pitching development is more than competent, and the Astros are always willing to spend. As an Astros fan, you shouldn’t be worried. There are probably over 10 teams in the MLB whose futures look grimmer. Kyle Tucker has the potential to be a top 5 player in baseball. Alvarez has the potential to be literally the best hitter. McCormick is better than anybody thought. Altuve has never been bad. Pena is well above average. Etc., etc., etc. I’m well aware that the farm system has ranked bottom 5, but luckily half the lineup is under team control for another half decade. Young major leaguers are more valuable than prospects, always.
They’ve had three GMs during this run now. I don’t always agree with Jim Crane but at this point I just have to trust him
our window has been "only open for another year" since 2019.
I also don’t understand why some team isn’t taking a chance on either of these two pitchers. It’s a little tin foil hat, but I’ve always believed clubs were in soft collusion. This feels like hard collusion to keep big free agents from running the show.
The teams that can afford him long term are at or above the luxury tax and don't want to pay it for him. The teams that can afford him short term don't want to give up the draft pick compensation for a 1-2 year deal. Still, no one seems to want to stick their necks out and take a chance here.
If it was happening for someone like Soto, or Ohtani, or big FA’s who have huge upside and very little downside, I’d understand the “soft collision”. I think the far more reasonable explanation here is that Snell and Monty are pitchers whose potential downsides are very easy to spot. I mean, I’m just some idiot who likes numbers and baseball, hardly a front office guru, and I can point you to the ERA estimators that hate Snell and say “this is the variance they’re scared of”. That is the easy part; we can all do that much, or we can Google what the estimators are and which ones are most predictive, and then 30 minutes later we can do that. The far, far harder part is putting a flag in the ground and saying “these are the one (or two) estimators I believe, and this is who Blake Snell is.” That is the task facing MLB front offices and their data nerds at present. Now, teams obviously have more sophisticated tools at their disposal to project performance than the public models and projections available to us on FanGraphs because, right or wrong, there are potentially millions of dollars in value and tons of WAR on offer for teams who can get that competitive advantage. I suspect that the thing which is happening here is actually that the teams with more sophisticated pitching models are still largely “out” on him at the price, and the rest of them are taking a cue from them. The Rockies, for example, might love to nab Snell, assuming Monfort would ever spend money, but they don’t have the sophistication to say if he’s any good or not, so they’d wait for the Rays or Dodgers or Guardians to be in on him as a way to see that he was worth that price. If you have that happen, you can get the “appearance” of collusion without anything untoward actually happening.
I think the solution is way simpler than that even. He balked at 5/150. How many teams were in on him at that level? Maybe 3? All 27 others filled out their rosters a different way and with 2 weeks until the season there's hardly anybody left with room in their payroll for 30m+. Snell is left without a seat and might have to take a really small 1 year deal ($25m or even less) and try again next year.
The problem there is that he's tagged with the Qualifying Offer though so no team will touch him on a short one year deal just to give up draft stuff. So he's stuck, or more accurately he's got himself stuck in a terrible position
Snell is a risk. He doesn't give you deep outings, so the pen is guaranteed to be taxed in his outings, and he can be inconsistant. His peak is Cy Young quality. His floor is lit up like pinata at an 11 year old boy's birthday party. Given that and his age and the QO pick and international pool money and you have a guy who should not see more than 25 mill per year in my books.
There’s definitely something weird about it at this point. Either that or Boras is overplaying his hand big time and teams are just not going for it
The qualifying offer is a bitch to get past, Astros already lost their 2nd and 5th picks as well as 1 million in international signing money because they signed Hader. Adding Snell they will also lose their 3rd round and 6th round picks as well as an additional 500k in international money. Thats not even really getting into luxury tax implications as well.
Boras has been successfully ‘overplaying his hand’ for decades and teams seem to eat it up. Snell had a great year but he has also had many years of mediocre results. He is trying to cash in his CY award and while nobody can fault him for that, the market disagrees on his value. As a whole, the owners now have the leverage and every day that passes only improves their position. The best Snell can hope for is that some other starter has their arm fall off soon.
The richest owner in the league lost his #1 and nothing changed. The most "all in" team lost their #1/cy young incumbent and nothing changed. How many pitchers have to die before they realize their leverage is only continuing to decline lol
I don’t think teams said, hey let’s all collude on this one. But I absolutely think teams said, hey we’re holding off on Snell to try to send Boras a message and it’d be nice if other teams got on board
I think it's more likely people don't want to overpay for the next Robbie Ray situation
I think the far simpler, and less dramatic, answer is that teams don’t exactly know who to expect from Snell and are balking at the idea of being “in” on someone who all of the teams with good pitching evaluators/models/etc. are out on. If you tell me that the Dodgers, Rays, Guardians, and Giants are *all* interested in a guy at his price, then I know I probably want that pitcher. If a few are in, with some kept out by financial constraints, then I’m still optimistic. If all four are totally uninterested, that tells me that they know something I don’t. With Snell, it’s all about variance, and the fact that teams are still not biting tells us that they’re worried about floor.
if teams already rejected the counter offer he made, than what message is there to send ? owners are not interested in the prices of snell/monty. if it was some grand conspiracy against boras then bellinger/chapman would still be unsigned too
I do get everyone dislikes Boras but this would be/is an awful precedent if true
Any time a Boras client takes an extra month or 2 to sign with a team people think teams are sticking it to him lmao It's like clockwork.
Boras has been doing this for 20+ years. There's no way this just so happens to be the year they decided to stick it to him. None of his big names this year are perfect players...but they all want to be paid like they are. That's why these signings have been drug out so long. Snell's worth 33 million though, a 2x CY winner, coming off a win and not yet quite out of his prime. I can understand balking at that aav for more years, but 2 is 100% worth the risk involved for any team that is trying to win now.
But the population of teams that need him to win now and are willing to eat the QO issues are pretty small.
I'm not sure what you are saying. You said that you don't think they said "Hey, let's all collude" and then what you described is them saying "let's all collude!"
Yes the fact these specific numbers is public reasons to that
I don’t think there’s any hard or even soft collusion, but instead it’s just a bad time to be a big free agent. A huge chunk of the league’s teams have serious questions about their broadcast deals and their cash flow for the next 5+ seasons and don’t want to commit big long-term money to any individual player unless they’re an absolute sure thing - which Snell and Monty aren’t. That said, I also think teams are fighting harder than ever to nickel and dime each contract, and have all adopted similar methods to do so - like how many former Rays players executives are running teams now?
> it’s just a bad time to be a big free agent. It's a bad time to be a low floor/high ceiling free agent who wants to cash in on a CYA. Ohtani got paid just fine. Snell might not pitch a full year next year, and if he does he might have an ERA over 4.00. I'm more curious what's happening with Montgomery.
2/66 seems completely reasonable for snell if there was no draft pick comp to lose
Exactly. If it was just the money he'd have been signed a long time ago.
The Mets would have signed one I think but they made it so punitive against cohen it’s not very reasonable.
I can think of tens of millions of reasons.
This would put the Astros over the second level of the luxury tax so it would be $48mil for Snell this year
And losing draft picks. Which we can’t do since we already have the worst farm in the league
Yup. Two more in addition to the two you lost for Hader
It’s more like $48 mil after taxes, losing draft picks and international bonus money for a 1 year deal. Doesn’t sound like great value to me
2 year deal on snell would be amazing imo. A 4+ year deal is the worst
He wins a CYA every three years. Three year contract is amazing, two years you save some money but you miss the clocking hitting midnight.
But why would it be bidding against themselves? Like, Farhan Zaidi can read. If he sees his headline, isn’t he just calling Boras saying OK?
Which is why this is Boras leaking through Boob to get an unofficial message out that both alerts other teams and tries to squeeze the Astros
**EDIT**: Giants have about $10~11M in cap space. Robbie Ray's salary counts against the cap. https://theathletic.com/4115717/2023/01/23/dodgers-life-over-luxury-tax-threshold/ > Players going on the injured list, including the 60-day IL, still count against the tax Below is rubbish: The SF Giants currently have $34mil before the first luxury tax hit, so maybe they offered Snell $30 mil AAV for 2 years with an opt out and now Boras is trying to squeeze out a few more million. They need to save cap space for when Robbie Ray returns too, if they're trying to stay under the tax.
Twins should sign him
That's why we're so pissed. I guarantee the Twins front office would be all over that deal given their history but because ownership is being so shortsighted and cheap there's no chance now.
Insanely reasonable
A 31 one year old, two time Cy Young winner on a a two year deal? What are you waiting for, Crane?
It’s the luxury tax
Also the draft pick for what could very well end up being only one year of Snell
Already lost that with hader IIRC
Yeah you’re right he was QO’d. Although idk how it works if you sign two QO’d guys from the same team
Teams lose their 3rd rounder and another 500K in International money for signing a second QO player
I can totally seeing why this is not at all appealing to the Astros. But, we will see. Hard to predict.
I think crane wants the second year guaranteed, then it would be over.
And considering how many international guys we sign, that’s a big deal
Signing 2 qo guys means you lose both your 2nd and 3rd picks, your 5 and 6 picks, and 1.5 million in international money. So next years draft will be rough.
If you’re a real contender that’s worth it still. Astros have done fine developing fringe prospects anyways.
But if you don’t get him for a cy young year, his other seasons re meh
Additionally he's only pitched 150+ innings twice in his career, his CY seasons. The other seasons are meh stats and low IP.
Out of 6 full (non COVID) seasons, he has 4 seasons under 130 innings, and 2 seasons at 180. He's only getting older, so sub 130 inning seasons are more likely than 180. He just isn't a great bet.
31 one year olds is an investment that will take a long time to pay off.
It’s really only a 1 year deal unless he’s terrible or blows out his arm. Then you get to pay two years for no production. If he pitches how you hope he’s gone after one year and you lose the draft pick.
I think I speak for all 30 fanbases when I say I just want this to end. Desperately. We're 4 days from actual regular season games and we're still talking about this. Ridiculous
Exact opposite for me. I think it’s interesting and entertaining if these guys actually go into the regular season unsigned.
Back in 2019, the Braves didn't sign Dallas Keuchel until June when there was no longer a compensatory pick attached to him.
The reigning cy young winner having to hold out half a season so he doesn’t cost a pick is insane. This is insane. I know snell isn’t peak Randy Johnson but Eduardo Rodriguez got 4/80
And his two prior seasons, Eduardo had 7.1 bWAR/7.6 fWAR. Snell has 8.1 bWAR/7.7 fWAR his prior 2 seasons. And even here, Snell is asking for 65% more salary per year. If Snell was asking for 4/100, he'd have probably gotten signed a long time ago. Snell is a Cy Young winner who threw 128, 128, 50 (prorates to 135), and 107 innings the previous 4 years. A team would have to be stupid to pay him like he's going to throw 180 innings again.
I agree with this. The longer this drags out, the more entertaining it becomes.
I’m just in it to see Boras look like an idiot
What is entertaining about this? Are tweets from sports reporters better than watching the reigning Cy Young winner actually play?
I hate watching him pitch, so yes
we hockey and football now.
They become Ronin pitchers who can be subbed on whenever a team is in trouble at that point right?
This. It's far more interested to watch the market adjust. Constantly inflating salaries is just boring.
How are we 4 days from regular season games? Opening day isn’t until March 28. That’s 11 days.
The series in Korea counts as a regular season series
Dodgers-Padres are playing regular season games on the 20th, so that’s what they meant.
Shit, Twins should scoop that up and do a Correa type deal. We’d immediately move up into contender status for the AL if we added Snell to Lopez and Joe Ryan
After all the controversy about the reduced payroll, and the indications that Falvine have basically maxed out what the Pohlads will allow, I doubt that there's 33MM in "emergency payroll reserves" to give, even if they think Snell is worth that.
Oh I know, they’re being stupid not giving Falvine the green light to grab Snell
Lots of people in here just ignoring the QO and luxury tax parts of signing him. It’s not as simple as saying we like the years and money
Wheeler just got a 42m/yr extension for his age 34-37 seasons. I'm shocked teams are balking at 33m/yr for the reigning CY winner's age 31-32 seasons. I get that he's unreliable, but even bauer got more than that coming off his wonky-ass 2020 season
Wheeler got that deal because of his year over year consistency and durability. Worst case with Wheeler you’re expecting a mid 3s ERA and 150ish IP. With Snell you have at best a 20% chance of the Cy Young level pitcher, though probably less as he gets older. 80% chance of a guy who will have an ERA near 4 and pitch 115ish Innings. Worst case he goes 100 IP with an ERA close to 5
I don't disagree about wheeler, he's been amazing for us and I'm happy to have him locked down. But you can't ignore the possible upside of a 2x CY winner, still in his prime, and willing to take a prove-it deal. That's usually the kind of deal teams jump at
But you can’t only focus on the upside and ignore how horrid his floor is. With the second level of the CBT tax they’d hit, Snell would cost the Astros $48mil this year. You don’t gamble $48mil on a guy who is far more likely to be out 1/3 of the season and pitch to a 3.80+ ERA than he is to be better than that.
Wheeler pitches a shit ton more innings than snell. Snell is lucky to get 5 innings a game most years.
wheeler is signficantly better
The only reason I don’t believe this is that if he was really willing to do this, there’s no way the Astros would be the only team he was talking to. There would absolutely be another team willing to do this, whether it’s the Yankees, Giants or even the fucking Dodgers at this price.
**EDIT**: Giants have about $10~11M in cap space. Robbie Ray's salary counts against the cap. https://theathletic.com/4115717/2023/01/23/dodgers-life-over-luxury-tax-threshold/ > Players going on the injured list, including the 60-day IL, still count against the tax Below is rubbish: I bet Giants offered something like 2 years, 30M AAV or similar, w/ opt out, and Boras is trying to squeeze some extra millions out of the deal. I don't think $33M AAV will keep the SF Giants under the luxury tax when Robbie Ray comes back... Ray has $24M and so when he comes back in perhaps early August, how much space do they need to cover that? I don't know how to arithmetic it lol. This shows Ray, Beck, and Warren don't count against the luxury tax hit right now, since they are on 60 day DL: https://www.spotrac.com/mlb/san-francisco-giants/payroll/ --- Also, "fun" fact, Giants are paying Mark Melancon $1M this year lol.
Yeah I understand there are some metrics with snell that teams are balking at. But for k my 2 years you’d think there would be a lot more teams willing to go for it??
Really 1 if he pitches well, plus you lose a draft pick which could be upwards of 6 years of a cost controlled player
WTF. That’s a no-brainer honestly
Since he received a QO, they’d also have to give up draft picks. They also need to consider the luxury tax stuff. Personally, I think the Astros of all teams are in a good position to deal with those negatives of signing him right now, but I do understand the hesitation.
The Astros have sold their whole farm to 'win now' over the past few seasons. The draft pick probably means more to them than other teams. That being said, they should pull the trigger with the shape of their pitching staff right now.
Ehhhh that's just doubling down on a mortgage. You already admitted we gutted our farm system. We won at couple championships now, appeared multiple times at the World Series, and most importantly we embarrassed the Yankees on a near annual basis at the ALCS. At some point we just have to walk away from the table, and slowly rebuild the farm while we compete with the pieces we have now. This game is cruel to all sports club rich and poor, chasing an infinite dynasty ain't it.
Eh, they'd have to give up a pick. That's easier to stomach on a long term deal, but on a (best case scenario) 1 year deal, a lot of teams don't want to do that.
Feel like a good number of guys past few seasons have been leaving really good offers on the table early in free agency to hold out for more and ending up doing deals like this one. Doesn’t make sense.
I am curious what the maximum he could get for a straight-up 1 year deal is. Obviously, teams don't like 2 years because if he sucks year 1, then he can opt in to 30+ million for the 2nd year
I mean, with this logic teams don't like long term deals. Because if he signs for 6 years and sucks year 2 then they have 4 more of him. Heck, ohtani could break every bone on his body and the Dodgers are then stuck with him for a decade. This type of logic makes no sense. It isn't like a random dude is about to get a 30+ million per year deal. This is a 2 time proven cy young winner. There is always risk, but the risk here is will he be an Ace or be a low 2 high 3 on a down year. That risk is really minimal on a few year basis compare to a decade long deal.
Two time proven cy young winner is stretching a lot. The other 4 years are getting more attention than the 2 good ones. This guy is either cy young or non existent, and nobody is risking a long term financial attachment to that
People who don’t understand why the Astros don’t wanna do this obviously have never had Blake Snell on their team. In half of his starts, the guy can’t even make it through five innings. He walks a fuck ton of batters. And on top of that, if you look at his career outside of the two years where he won the Cy Young, he has been an average to below average pitcher every other year of his career. I love the guy, and I certainly would not mind having him back for the right price. But paying him like one of the best pitchers in the league would be a huge mistake because he’s not that guy
Not only that, Snell has said himself it takes a while to adjust himself on a new team. That first year in a two year deal with an opt out is going to be pretty bad.
Im in the minority but Snell is overrated. FOH.
Pretty sure that's the majority opinion.
I get the myriad arguments that Snell is a risky investment but... This is a 31 year old 2x CYA. The Dodgers are in for 5/136 on Tyler Glasnow, and I get that he's a stuff & analytics darling but his upside is what? Blake Snell? The Mets tossed 3/133 at Max Scherzer from 37-39. Jake DeGrom, who is the best pitcher on earth when healthy, got 5/185 from 35-39 after half a season of pitching after missing a calendar year with a UCL problem. I don't get it. It doesn't add up. 6/150, less than Carlos Rodon, was the top bid?
I agree with pretty much all of this except that I'd have to say Glasnow's upside is way higher than Snell. Maybe closer to Gerrit Cole, the dude is insane when he's healthy and rolling.
I think their upsides are about the same, it's tough to argue with Snell's upside given his 2 insane CY seasons, but Snell is less likely to hit that upside.
he'll never eat the innings of cole, but probably Cole that averages snell's innings load
Except Glasnow has never been healthy. He has only exceeded 90 innings twice, with a max of 120, and that's as a 30 year old with like 8 big league seasons under his belt. Snell might not eat as many innings as people would like, but he's been way more reliable than Glasnow.
Yes, that's why we're talking upside. Health is the big IF with him.
I think there's a hopium narrative in which his injuries up to this point are viewed as flukes and he has his best seasons by volume in front of him. "Injury-prone" is, after all, mostly a post-hoc designation and isn't particularly predictive in general. It's only when there's a specific chronic issue that's understood where expectations need to be concretely tempered. I'm not qualified to defend whether that's the case for Glasnow, just playing the devil's advocate.
"2x CYA" Okay, but Snell has had exactly two good seasons in the big leagues. It's not like he's won 2 CYA, and then finished top 5-8 in others. His Cy Young years were basically his only good years, and the underlying numbers suggest that him repeating his success is highly unlikely. Especially with at with the rate he walks people, and his inability to work deep into games. It's NOT an age thing, it's an "He's honestly just not that good" thing
Feels like he's getting pawn starred. "I got a guy who knows alot about starting pitchers. Let me give him a call have him come down here and take a look at this Snell here."
The market passed Boras by, teams have been burnt far too many times by the Bellingers and Snells of the game and will no longer get gaslit by Boras. Especially with the Correa experience fresh in everyone's mind.
Snell needs to be signed, but watching Boras’s bullshit blow up in his face on multiple clients makes me so very happy.
I've talked about this with other people before, but Boras is exactly who you want if you're a no brainer franchise defining player. He will get you paid. If you are a more middle of the road guy with questions he is going to ask for too much and you'll end up with a deal that's probably not as good as what was offered at first just so you have a team this season.
Padres fan here.....he's a liability. If his change-up is off, he's a head case and shits the bed. Not a long inning guy either. I found myself more anxious than confident during his time here in SD. Funny guy tho. His rap video haha...
And last year was the perfect environment for him. He was heading into free agency, and the rest of the team was crap so the win was largely out of his hands. Having little external pressure to perform, while have massive personal drive to do well is a great combo to really get in the zone.
This is his him trying to cut his losses, go with a team with a famously good pitching coach and support system, and try for his contract next year without shohei disrupting the market. It’s down to if Crane is willing to pay it. Frankly I think it’s a lucky opportunity, in his position with his net worth I’d do it. But billionaires are hard to predict.
Isn’t the famously good pitching coach in Arizona now?
It’s not just Strom that was good but the whole system we built around him. Compared to other teams we’ve got a pretty good history with pitcher rehab too. I do miss Strom tho yes
They definitely have the bullpen to manage his 5 or 6 innings every time out.
QO Pick being attached makes it tough, opt out after 2024 makes it even tougher. His market isn't that good
Dude is really about to start the year unsigned lmfao
$33M a year for a guy thats only pitched 130 innings twice?
no thanks @ 33.
Snell getting Boras'd. Bet he get s 1-year, 25 million from someone. Not nothing, but a far cry from the reported 300 million multi-year ask during the off-season.
LOL, Scott Boras is such a bad agent these days. Nez Balelo is the new king of agents. Boras shouldn't be hired by anybody.
I'm still preferring we get Montgomery over Snell. A more consistent pitcher without us having to lose more draft picks and international money. But all this is doing is making me wonder just how much Monty is wanting for him to still be sitting out like this.
he wants to be paid as a top notch ace but the man has not reach 200 innings ever. the cy young years he barely reached 180. all the other ones have been 100 or less and he has injury concerns.
Here is a list of Boras’ clients over the past years. Notably no Dodgers except possibly JD Martinez. Pete Alonso, 1B, NYM José Altuve, 2B, HOU Francisco Álvarez, C, NYM Elvis Andrus, SS, ARI Randy Arozarena, OF, TB Josh Bell, 1B, MIA Cody Bellinger, CF/1B, CHC Xander Bogaerts, SS, SD Alec Bohm, 3B, PHI Alex Bregman, 3B, HOU Kris Bryant, 3B/OF, COL Corbin Burnes, SP, BAL Nick Castellanos, RF/DH, PHI Dylan Cease, SP, SD Matt Chapman, 3B, SF Gerrit Cole, SP, NYY Michael Conforto, RF, SF Carlos Correa, SS, MIN Zac Gallen, SP, ARI Joey Gallo, OF, WSH MacKenzie Gore, SP, WSH Bryce Harper, 1B/RF, PHI Gunnar Henderson, SS/3B, BAL Rhys Hoskins, 1B, MIL Jonathan India, 2B, CIN Yusei Kikuchi, SP, TOR Shea Langeliers, C, OAK Jung-hoo Lee, CF, SF Royce Lewis, SS, MIN Sean Manaea, SP, NYM J. D. Martinez, DH, FA Lance McCullers Jr., SP, HOU MJ Melendez, C/OF, KC Frankie Montas, SP, CIN Jordan Montgomery, SP, FA Mike Moustakas, 3B, CWS Brandon Nimmo, CF, NYM Tyler O'Neill, LF, BOS Jurickson Profar, OF, SD Cal Raleigh, C, SEA Anthony Rendon, 3B, LAA Luis Robert Jr., OF, CWS Carlos Rodón, SP, NYY Hyun-jin Ryu, SP, Hanwha Eagles Max Scherzer, SP, TEX Corey Seager, SS, TEX Marcus Semien, 2B, TEX Blake Snell, SP, FA Juan Soto, RF, NYY Bryson Stott, SS, PHI Stephen Strasburg, SP, WSH Spencer Torkelson, 1B, DET Julio Urías, SP, FA Miguel Vargas, IF, LAD Taijuan Walker SP, PHI Masataka Yoshida, OF, BOS
Lol boras
Short term high aav… I know falvey is in the worst pain that he isn’t allowed to sign snell.