TORONTO – If you consider how the Tampa Bay Rays used Blake Snell in Game 6 of the World Series, their decision to trade him to San Diego isn’t surprising at all.
Snell, the 2018 American League Cy Young winner, had nine strikeouts with just one run allowed against the Dodgers in Game 6 only to get pulled after 5.1 innings. When the Rays’ bullpen blew the save and the Dodgers won it all, controversy followed: did the Rays make the right bet only to lose, or did their relentless pursuit of an edge get in the way of common sense?
Two months later, the Rays are again moving on from Snell before they have to, this time in a trade with San Diego. The Padres are reinforcing their status as one of baseball’s most interesting teams by agreeing to acquire Snell for pitcher Luis Patino, catcher Francisco Mejia and prospects Blake Hunt and Cole Wilcox.
With that, Snell joins Chris Paddack, Dinelson Lamet and Mackenzie Gore atop a talented rotation and the Padres become an even bigger threat to the Dodgers. In the AL East, meanwhile, there are significant ramifications, too…
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Rays threading the needle
Without Snell and Charlie Morton, the Rays are a worse team in 2021. But there’s upside coming back to Tampa Bay here, and of course, that should be the case in any deal for Snell. While top free-agent starters often earn upwards of $30 million per season, Snell’s set to earn a total of $40.8 million over the next three seasons. That gave him massive trade value.
Patino, who began the 2020 season as Baseball America’s No. 18-ranked prospect, should contribute at the MLB level in 2021. At this point, he’s more raw (96.7 m.p.h. average fastball velocity) than polished (14 walks in 17.1 MLB innings), but he just turned 21. Plus, the addition of Mejia helps considering the Rays’ need for catching depth and the additional prospects bolster an already deep Tampa Bay system.
It might be a soulless move reminiscent of the trades involving David Price and Evan Longoria and Chris Archer. And yes, the Rays will likely project as a worse team in 2021 now. But this move is designed with the long view in mind, and the Rays have won far more trades than they’ve lost. It’ll be at least a year or two before we know where this one ranks, but in the meantime, this team should still be considered a threat to win the American League East.
Many AL East teams now seeking arms
It’s not just the Rays who have a depleted starting rotation right now. All four teams with any chance of advancing out of the AL East are short-handed as well. Consider that…
•Even though they added Michael Wacha, the Rays are without Morton and Snell.
•The Yankees lost Masahiro Tanaka, James Paxton and J.A. Happ to free agency.
• If the season started today, Boston’s third starter might be Tanner Houck or Matt Andriese.
•Though they re-signed Robbie Ray, the Blue Jays must add more starting pitching after losing Taijuan Walker and Matt Shoemaker to free agency.
To this point, this off-season has been moving incredibly slowly, but between now and the start of spring training those four teams will be competing for some of the same arms. And at some point, the action has to pick up, doesn’t it? January has a chance to be as interesting as November and December have been quiet.
What would the Blue Jays’ equivalent offer have been?
It was just last summer that the Blue Jays and Rays completed a trade for Eric Sogard, but that was a minor deal at a time that the Blue Jays were still deep in a rebuild. Completing a trade for a player of Snell’s calibre while both clubs are competitive would surely be more complicated.
With that caveat in mind, what might a comparable offer have looked like from the Blue Jays? Perhaps a top pitching prospect like Simeon Woods Richardson or Alek Manoah would have played the part of Patino while Danny Jansen (25 years old, .668 lifetime OPS, 2.050 years of service time) looks like a fair comp for Mejia (25 years old, .668 lifetime OPS, 2.054 years of service time). Add in two younger prospects and you have a comparable offer.
Does the Snell deal set a precedent for Reds?
Clearly, the Padres paid a significant price here, converting prospect depth into frontline pitching for the second time in four months (deadline acquisition Mike Clevinger underwent Tommy John surgery in November with a view toward a 2022 return). In San Diego, there are presumably more moves to come from GM A.J. Preller, but around baseball, the Snell deal will be a useful reference point.
That may be especially true in Cincinnati, where right-hander Luis Castillo appears to be on the trade block. Castillo, who was born one week and one day after Snell, has similarly impressive stuff and, like Snell, three years of club control remaining. If the Reds do listen on the right-hander, they have every reason to expect a comparable return.
