Blake Snell Signs With Dodgers for Five Years, Who Will The Red Sox Pivot To Next?

One of the Red Sox's top potential targets is officially off the board. Late Tuesday night, Blake Snell hinted at a possible signing as he posted an image of himself in a Los Angeles Dodgers uniform on his personal Instagram. He had done the same last offseason, right before announcing that he had signed with the San Francisco Giants. Sure enough, the breaking news tweets began to roll out with the announcement. Blake Snell had signed with the Dodgers for five years and a grand total of $182 million. Of that $182 million, $52 million will come in the form of a signing bonus, as reported by the New York Post’s Jon Heyman. Jack Harris of the Los Angeles Times reported that roughly $60 million of the remaining $130 million will be deferred and that while Snell doesn't have a no-trade clause, he would receive an additional $5 million from the Dodgers if they were to trade him.

Deferring money has become a trend with the Dodgers of late. Most notably, Shohei Ohtani is making $70 million a year, but a whopping $68 million is deferred. Snell will not receive the full amount until years after his contract has expired. Assuming the deferrals are spread out evenly, Snell's average annual value would work out to $34.34 million for the purposes of the Competitive Balance Tax. Snell is the first major free agent to sign this offseason and is likely to jumpstart the free agent market.

Signing this early in the offseason is a stark difference from last year. The left-handed pitcher didn't sign until March 19 this past offseason, inking a two-year, $62 million contract with the San Francisco Giants with an opt-out after the first season. Leaving $30 million on the table, Snell bet on himself and opted out. That gamble paid off handsomely, as he became the first free agent in this year’s class to sign a nine-figure deal.

Snell, a two-time Cy Young winner, had previously been in contact with the Red Sox. How deep these conversations went is unknown but they had been in a meeting as recently as last week. Despite heavy interest from the Red Sox, Snell had made it no secret across his career that he preferred playing on the West Coast. He'll now remain on the West Coast for the foreseeable future. Snell will turn 32 on Wednesday, and in joining the defending World Series champions will fit somewhere in a rotation that already houses superstars Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and Tyler Glasnow. That doesn't even include the back end of the rotation being filled in by some combination of Clayton Kershaw, Bobby Miller, Tony Gonsolin, and Dustin May.

With Snell off the table, Bob Nightengale reported that Red Sox are now focusing on Max Fried. The left-handed pitcher will enter the 2025 season at 31 years old and will likely cost less than Snell’s $182 million contract. Coming off of an 11-win season in which he ran a 3.25 ERA over 174 1/3 innings, Fried would easily slot in at the top of the Red Sox rotation alongside Tanner Houck. Boston will also likely focus on Corbin Burnes. The righty just turned 30, making him younger than both Snell and Fried. He’s likely to cost more. Despite pitching well for the Orioles, Burnes has seen a decline since his Cy Young-winning season in 2021. He is still capable of being an ace, but the big red flag is the fact that his cutter isn't quite the same pitch it once was, which has hurt his strikeout rate. Despite that development, Burnes saw an improvement in his slider and introduced a sweeper in 2023. By leaning on these pitches, he could offset the decline in his cutter and remain an ace-caliber pitcher for years to come.

Snell wasn’t the first free agent the Red Sox lost out on and he won’t be the last. However, if the Red Sox are serious about upgrading their rotation, they need to go out and sign one of the other premier starting pitchers still on the market. With Snell unavailable, it is likely that other teams will get desperate. The Red Sox do not want to end up in a bidding war with a desperate team and should look to act quickly, even if that means overpaying slightly.