The Los Angeles Dodgers did it again. The defending World Series champions made the first major splash of the offseason, signing Blake Snell to a five-year deal.
Snell now joins Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Tyler Glasnow, and likely others, in what will certainly be the most talented rotation in the majors.
The Dodgers signing another high-end arm shouldn’t come as a surprise at this point given their team’s determination to win. The only somewhat surprising part of the Snell deal was the contract that he got. The southpaw signed a five-year deal worth $182 million.
With how good Snell is when healthy, that’s obviously a solid deal. Given the fact that Snell has surpassed the 25-start mark just three times and the 30-start mark twice in his nine-year career, it’s a substantial investment into a player who is a clear injury risk.
Risk aside, the Snell signing was a big win for everyone involved. The Dodgers got yet another ace to slot into their rotation, Snell got paid, and perhaps most importantly, the price for the other high-end free agency starters just went up.
It wouldn’t be surprising to see Max Fried get something similar to Snell, and Corbin Burnes – the top free agent starter – looks like the biggest winner of all.
Corbin Burnes’ price just rose exponentially thanks to Blake Snell deal
Snell is an outstanding pitcher who deserved to get paid, but he was not the best pitcher available. An argument can be made that he wasn’t even the second-best pitcher available. The clear-cut best starter available is Burnes, and his price just went up.
Snell might be the more dynamic strikeout pitcher, but is there a single starter more consistent and reliable than Burnes? Since the start of the 2020 season, Burnes ranks eighth in the majors in starts, third in innings pitched, fourth in ERA, second in quality starts, second in strikeouts, and second in fWAR among qualified pitchers. He’s able to not only consistently take the ball, but he’s able to eat innings efficiently, and produce like one of the best pitchers in the game annually.
This past season saw the right-hander post a 2.92 ERA in 32 starts and 194.1 innings of work for the Baltimore Orioles. He was an All-Star for the fourth consecutive season, and he finished fifth in the AL Cy Young balloting. He’s finished in the top eight of the Cy Young voting in each of the last five years, and won the award in 2021. He even proved he can produce in October, as he allowed just one run in eight dominant innings in his lone postseason start.
There are some alarming factors with Burnes, like his declining strikeout rate and the fact that he’d cost draft pick compensation to sign, but he has always been considered the No. 1 option for a reason.
Burnes (30) is younger than Snell (31) and is a lot more reliable than Snell. He was expected to get more money and years than Snell, so his price just skyrocketed. Instead of hoping he can surpass $200 million, it’d be pretty surprising at this point if Burnes didn’t approach or pass $250 million on the deal he signs.
Given Snell’s $36.4 million AAV with his new deal, would it really be surprising to see Burnes get something like a seven-year deal with a $38 million AAV? If that’s the case, he’d sign a deal worth $266 million, and that might be undershooting. The Dodgers won, as did Snell, but Burnes’ victory might be more substantial in the end.
