No, the New York Yankees will not be signing Blake Snell. Somebody caved on Monday night to the contract terms he’d been presenting for weeks, after it became clear he wouldn’t be inking a long-term deal with anyone this offseason.
The best part? That team that caved was not the Houston Astros. Jim Crane’s Snell/Josh Hader dream — and the Yankees’ penny-pinching nightmare — is no more.
Snell settled with the San Francisco Giants on a two-year, $62 million deal with an opt out after Year 1, per Jon Heyman. It’s an absolute no brainer of a contract for a team that’s struggled to add free agent talent in recent years, finishing second during the offseason far more often than they have in the NL West since the Dodgers’ emergence.
The Yankees were never going to go for a contract like this one. Even though, for a pitcher like Snell, paying a hefty sum over a year or two is much more appealing than lowering the AAV and hamstringing yourself long-term, that just isn’t how the heavily-taxed Yankees roll.
The best part is … we get to do all of this over again next winter, when Snell will opt out of his Giants contract if he continues to dominate out west. With Justin Verlander another year older and potentially opting for retirement, you can bet that the left-hander will be a prominent Astros target, provided Houston can shed the requisite salary to fit him (by letting Alex Bregman walk?).
The Yankees will hopefully enter next offseason with a healthy Gerrit Cole and a surging Carlos Rodón atop the rotation, lessening their need to pay 110% tax on Snell. If Houston is involved, it will be tempting to keep him out of the seven-straight-and-counting ALCS participants’ backyard, though.
That’s over for now, at least. San Francisco is the least volatile landing spot possible from a Yankees perspective. Seattle would’ve been an adorable homecoming, but the American League is the American League. Arte Moreno’s Angels? You don’t exactly fear them — but, again, junior circuit. You’d run into them. Houston? Pure bile.
But the City by the Bay? They may have Snell and Arson, but the Yankees retained the real Judge. They can deal with it.
