Blake Snell made his 2022 debut last night (5/18) after being on the IL to start the year with a groin injury that flared up on him a couple of times in the road to returning. The final line wasn’t pretty, but after watching his outing, I believe there’s more optimism going forward for Snell than the box score would indicate.
Snell went 3.2 IP and it took him 84 pitches to do so. While that’s definitely not an efficient outing, his 2021 velocity was present and he maintained it over those 84 pitches. Snell looks to have added some thickness to his frame and he labored during high stress spots and long AB’s but the velocity didn’t waver and averaged 95.9 MPH on the night, in 2021 his average FB velocity was 95.2. Staying on the heater, last night Snell had what I’d grade as 40 command but the life on the heater allows him to get away with far more ‘mistakes’ than the vast majority of the league. He had spurts of having some feel for locating in the upper quadrants of the zone, but his horizontal command never showed up and for a guy with Snells FB traits, he’s not always going to need the side-to-side command.
Secondary stuff wise, it’s no surprise to report that Snells far and away best secondary offering is the slider. It’s a 70-grade offering that has two-plane break and plus-plus tightness and bite. It’s an offering he relies on batters to chase often, but it has such late break and quality shape that it’s going to get those consistently. Snell abused Johan Carmago with backfoot sliders in every AB last night to the point I had some sympathy for Carmago and I have a feeling we both just wanted those AB’s to end. He flashed a couple of 50 CB’s with deep 1/7 shape, but the majority were fringey and he just utilized it to give batters a new look, throwing it 9.5% of the time in the outing. Snell threw the changeup the exact same amount as the CB (9.5%). It’s a firm changeup that ranged from 87-90 MPH and flashed some slight fade and depth but not a pitch I’d throw an average grade on.
It’d be huge for Snell if he can advance his control of either or both his CB/CH combo, because as I said above, his SL is sharp enough to where he doesn’t need it to be in the zone regularly to have success with it. He was really a two-pitch pitcher even more than usual last night and that led to extended AB’s and a higher pitch count. However, even if neither pitch has the control progress, I still believe Snell will have overpowering enough of a FB/SL combo to delivery many 4-5 IP, high K, high BB, and high pitch count outings.
Other than the noticeable added weight on Snell’s frame, I think there is good reason to believe we’ll see a return to the 2021 version of Snell (11.9 K/9, 4.8 BB/9), a pitcher who misses a lot of bats but one who also issues a good number of BB’s which in turn limits how many outs he’s going to get his squad in any given start. If you’re looking for Snell to return to the days he could be argued as an ‘ace’, well those days are obviously behind him, but with his profile I don’t think it’s a stretch to imagine Snell giving the Padres the production of a quality #3 SP.
