Blake Snell Switches Team, Remains in Division & in California

A week ago, Blake Snell signed a massive five-year, $182 million contract with the Dodgers. Incredibly, that means that Snell will now play for a third team in the NL West division and remain a Californian the entire time. Has this ever happened before?! He’s got two teams in the NL West and two teams in California to join before sweeping the division and the state. Perhaps he could do it by the end of his career.

Now that my amusement of his landing spots are out of the way, let’s talk park factors and the team switch. After just one season with the Giants, he heads South now to join the 2024 World Series champs. How might the ballpark switch affect his results? Let’s consult the park factors.

Let’s begin with the hit factors. Snell moves to a park that has suppressed hits, as Dodger Stadium actually rank as the eighth most pitcher friendly park for that factor. This is an improvement from Oracle Park, which has been exactly neutral.

The hits factor directly affects BABIP. Since Snell debuted in 2016, MLB starters have recorded a .294 BABIP. Over his career, Snell has posted a better mark at .286. In the last two seasons, he recorded significantly lower marks at .256 and .266 in 2023 and 2024, respectively. Given the sample size, it’s likely that Snell does own some BABIP suppression skill, though it’s really jumped around from season to season. He posted the second highest FB% and lowest LD% of his career in 2024, so that certainly helped him avoid allowing hits on balls in play. Of course, his history suggests both those numbers will regress closer to his career averages.

On the whole, Dodger Stadium appears to be a positive for his BABIP. Of course, with a career strikeout rate just over 30%, his BABIP allowed isn’t as important as someone with a below average strikeout rate. But it will still allow him to keep runs off the board.

Moving on, we land on walk rate next. Snell hasn’t exactly been the bastion of control, as he sports a career 10.9% walk rate and has posted double digit marks the last two seasons. Dodger Stadium does suppress them marginally, but Oracle Park has been the best walk suppressor in baseball. In fact, Snell posted a 9.6% walk rate at home this year, versus an 11.6% mark on the road. We don’t know how much of that is just playing better at home, but Snell’s WHIP and potentially ERA is at risk in a less walk forgiving park.

After the hit and walk factors, we combine them with the OBP factor. After all that talk about hits and walks, the two parks are almost identical when it comes to simply getting on base, both suppressing baserunners. Knowing the OBP factors are about the same, the shape of the OBP comes into play. For a pitcher, it’s preferred that a park suppresses hits, compared to walks, and that’s exactly what we see here for Dodger Stadium. So even though the OBP factors are similar, the lower hit factor in Los Angeles would yield fewer runs at around the same OBP mark. This is a positive for Snell.

Next, we move over to home runs. Did you know that Dodger Stadium has been a home run haven?! It actually ranks second in HR factor over the last three seasons, which is not something I would have guessed. On the other hand, Oracle Park is all the way down at…the bottom. This was just one ranking off from being the biggest possible park factor swing!

Though the home run park factor isn’t the same as HR/FB rate, I like using the ratio as a proxy to determine how a pitcher might be affected by the park factors. Snell has posted an 11.1% HR/FB rate throughout his career, versus a 13.5% mark by the league. He hasn’t posted a mark above 10.9% in the past three years. Like BABIP, it seems pretty clear that he owns some HR/FB rate suppression skill. However, now he might face the ultimate test as he moves to the second most home run friendly park in baseball, and out of the park he posted a microscopic 4% HR/FB rate last year.

If he maintains a 40%+ fly ball rate, an inflated HR/FB rate could meaningfully increase his ERA, so that’s definitely a potential negative.

We then jump over to strikeout factors. These are pretty similar, with Dodger Stadium slightly inflating them and Oracle Park suppressing them. Obviously, Snell’s strikeout ability is what has made him an ace. He has posted a strikeout rate over 30% every season since 2018, which is pretty remarkable. He hasn’t been doing it with finesse either, as his 14.3% SwStk% is superb. His stuff has even gotten better these last two years, as his strikeout rate has sat over 15% each season!

You might be surprised to learn that there’s actually a big gap between the best and worst parks for strikeouts, so this factor could certainly impact results. However, that won’t be the case here, so Snell shouldn’t have to worry about his new park affecting his punchouts. Of course, coming off a career best strikeout rate means he would have likely suffered some regression next season regardless of which team he signed with.

Finally, we end with the summary factors, runs scored and Park Factor. Both these factors grade Dodger Stadium as exactly neutral, with the big home run factor offset by lower hit and walk, and slightly higher strikeout factors. Still, it’s a downgrade compared to Oracle Park, which ranks tied with the fourth lowest runs scored factor and overall park factor. So on the whole, the park would seem to marginally ding Snell’s results.

To summarize, the park factors suggest that the move to Dodger Stadium could reduce his BABIP, but increase his walk and HR/FB rates, which would raise both his ERA and WHIP.

That said, it obviously doesn’t mean that you should knock Snell down after the signing. He now joins a team that ranked second in baseball in runs scored, leaving one that ranked 17th. That should lead to more wins given the additional run support.

He also might get an upgrade from his defense. While the Dodgers weren’t any good according to the Def rating, ranking just 18th with a slightly negative mark, the Giants were even worse, ranking 22nd. If you prefer UZR, the Giants move slightly ahead, while the teams are back-to-back in OAA, and the Dodgers are a couple of ranks behind in FRV. So depending on which fielding metric is most trustworthy, it appears to be a toss-up who was actually the better defensive team in 2024. And since team personnel change and players both improve their defense and suffer decline, it makes it tough to predict whether Snell will receive better defensive support next year.

Overall, the better supporting cast of a World Series winner should offset any hit to his ratios that he might suffer. I certainly wouldn’t be moving him up my board, but he obviously moves into another great situation. Just don’t forget that he’s thrown more than 130 innings just twice throughout his entire career, so he’s a better shallow league buy where replacement level is higher.