Archive for Blake Snell

There is no getting around the fact that Blake Snell had a miserable, short outing against the Yankees on Wednesday afternoon. He had little control and wasn’t fooling any of the hitters he faced. I do give Gary Sanchez credit for hitting an outside changeup for an opposite-field home run, and the weak grounder DJ LeMahieu hit for a leadoff single had just a 23 percent chance of becoming a hit (per Baseball Savant). Still, Snell owns the four walks he issued, which is a true feat considering he faced only five other batters besides Sanchez and LeMahieu.

For those who have Snell on their fantasy rosters, the month of June has been a difficult one. He did have a strong outing on June 9 against the Red Sox in Boston (one run allowed in six innings with seven strikeouts), but across his other three starts, the lefty gave up 16 runs (15 earned) in only eight innings.
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The emergence of Gerrit Cole as a top-10 starting pitcher and top-three pitcher for strikeouts was one of the more notable developments in fantasy in 2018. As unexpected as Cole’s emergence may have been, he did have a history of being an above-average strikeout pitcher, particularly in his second and third season with the Pirates. Just as noteworthy was a cohort of starters who catapulted themselves well above the major league norm for strikeout rate after having been average or below-average strikeout pitchers prior to this past season.
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Among starting pitchers who finished in the top 20 in Roto value this season, few were further under the radar on draft day than Blake Snell and Mike Clevinger were. Though Snell was the fourth-most productive starter in terms of Roto value (according to ESPN’s Player Rater) and Clevinger ranked 17th, neither were among the top 190 players in ADP in NFBC or ESPN drafts.

In addition to a surge in their totals of innings pitched, both Snell and Clevinger experienced surprisingly strong improvements in their walk rates. Free passes were a weakness for both of them in 2017, but this season, Snell trimmed his walk rate from 10.8 percent to 9.1 percent, and Clevinger lowered his from 12.0 percent to 8.3 percent. Both pitchers were already proficient at getting strikeouts and had done a fair job of avoiding homers. With even stronger skill sets heading into 2019, fantasy owners could see Snell and Clevinger as particularly appealing options in a pitching pool defined by uncertainty and risk.

But should we?
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The 2017 season has not been kind to Blake Snell. The 24-year-old southpaw has been demoted to the minors multiple times while putting up ghastly numbers in the majors including a 4.42 ERA, 4.52 BB/9 and averaging just 5.4 innings per start. However, Sunday’s excellent outing of 7.0 IP, 0 ER, 2 Hits, 2 BBs, and 7 Ks against Seattle has been raising eyebrows, hinting at Snell’s massive upside we saw when he entered the major leagues in 2016. The question is, what did Snell do in this outing to succeed and can we expect this level of production to return in future starts?

Let’s dive into Sunday’s game against the Mariners to determine if Snell can be a dependable pitcher down the stretch. First here’s a quick overview of Snell’s approach for the afternoon.

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