The Los Angeles Angels could use a new number one starter.
Shohei Ohtani no longer plays for the Angels, leaving a vacuum in the starting rotation. Fortunately for the Angels, they could fill the hole with a single signing.
Blake Snell, a two-time Cy Young Award winner, is still available and could significantly improve the Angels’ chances of vying for an American League Wild Card position.
Los Angeles has allegedly expressed interest in a potential deal, although the club faces some competition. Snell has also been associated with the New York Yankees and the San Francisco Giants.
While this is true, NJ.com’s Bob Klapisch believes that Snell’s most likely landing locations are Los Angeles and San Francisco.
“(Hal Steinbrenner) won’t bend on the 110 percent luxury tax surcharge that would force him to pay Snell upwards of $60 million in 2024,” he claimed. “The young Boss has repeatedly told Scott Boras, ‘No thanks. Instead of the Yankees, the Angels and (the San Francisco Giants) are more likely to sign Snell. If that’s the case, the Bombers will bid their final goodbyes with no regrets. They were not the ones to let Snell slide through their fingers. It was the opposite way around. Boras refused to lower his demand of $30 million per year. That error closed the window of opportunity for the Yankees, who have switched their attention to Clarke Schmidt.”
New York has been linked to Snell but would face heavy tax implications if it were to sign him. Los Angeles and San Francisco both have more financial wiggle room and are looking for rotation help.
Snell would be the perfect player to help out the Angels, but they’ll have to open up their checkbooks to make a deal happen. It remains to be seen if Arte Moreno will do that.
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The Yankees were allegedly willing to go above the initial offer in Blake Snell talks.
It still appears unlikely that the Yankees and Blake Snell would find a soft landing, especially after Jack Curry’s weekend bombshell mid-spring training broadcast. But, perhaps, if Snell’s camp (Scott Boras) had been more patient in the beginning, they could have found some common ground with Brian Cashman months ago.
Instead of settling in pinstripes, Snell’s free agency rambles on, with the lefty’s camp eyesSan Francisco Giants injury updates with less than a month till Opening Day. Jon Heyman said that the two sides spoke again on Monday, but very little progress was made. That seems normal.
Yankees Rumors: Was NYY initially eager to enhance Blake Snell’s offer?
Our Sunday Prediction: No chance.
Our Wednesday Guess: Still a firm no, but there was a window in January.
As Mark Feinsand pointed out in his Tuesday piece, the Yankees were reportedly willing to expand their offer to six years and $28 million per year back in January. Given the luxury tax consequences of a short-term, high-AAV contract, as well as the fact that they were not contemplating such options in the first place, that type of marriage appears exceedingly unlikely.
Perhaps that’s why Cashman pushed back during his interview on Talkin’ Yanks about the exact parameters of the publicly reported Snell offer, implying that the “specificity” of the alleged five-year, $150 million deal was a little wrong. Perhaps the Yankees would have started with $28 million over five years ($140 million), then held internal discussions about extending to a sixth year?
However, it does not appear that such conversations took place in public, as either Snell or Boras quickly rejected the Yankees’ approaches. Now, he has his own client, Juan Soto, working extra hard to lobby for a deal that could have died months ago. The Yankees are doing Boras a favor — ahead of Soto’s own free agency — by pushing back gently and allowing these sales techniques to continue.
At this point, it all appears to be a meaningless gesture, and with the signing of Marcus Stroman in early January, the semantics of a Snell offer that was never formally rescinded but no longer exists are inconsequential.
