Jorge Castillo
Jorge Castillo
ESPN Staff Writer
- ESPN baseball reporter. Covered the Washington Wizards from 2014 to 2016 and the Washington Nationals from 2016 to 2018 for The Washington Post before covering the Los Angeles Dodgers and MLB for the Los Angeles Times from 2018 to 2024.
Jeff Passan
Jeff Passan
ESPN
- ESPN MLB insider
Author of “The Arm: Inside the Billion-Dollar Mystery of the Most Valuable Commodity in Sports”
Free agent left-hander Blake Snell and the Los Angeles Dodgers have agreed to a five-year, $182 million contract, sources told ESPN on Tuesday night.
The deal, which is pending a physical, includes no opt-outs, some deferred money and a $52 million signing bonus, sources said.
For the Dodgers, Snell gives the World Series champions a frontline starter for their title defense next season after they survived October by depending heavily on their bullpen with just three healthy starters. For Snell, the pact marks a much quicker and satisfying conclusion to his second stint as a free agent.
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The $182 million contract is the third largest for a left-handed pitcher in major league history based on total value, behind only David Price’s with the Boston Red Sox in 2015 ($217 million) and Clayton Kershaw’s with the Dodgers in 2014 ($215M).
For the Dodgers, it’s another massive deal for a free agent. They have now handed out five contracts worth at least $100 million since the start of the 2023-24 offseason — the same number as the rest of MLB combined.
Snell, a two-time Cy Young Award winner, opted out of the final season of his two-year, $62 million deal with the San Francisco Giants on Nov. 1 to become a free agent for the second straight offseason.
He joins the Giants’ archrival in Southern California and a rotation that is, on paper, loaded for 2025. As it stands, the Dodgers boast Snell, Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Tyler Glasnow plus Dustin May, Tony Gonsolin, Bobby Miller and Kershaw — should he re-sign with the club, as expected — as options to round out the group. The Dodgers are also among the leading contenders to sign Japanese star right-hander Roki Sasaki, who is expected to be posted this winter.
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Snell was the National League Cy Young Award winner with the San Diego Padres in 2023 — five years after winning the American League honor with the Tampa Bay Rays — but his market never materialized to his liking. Concerns about inconsistent strike-throwing prompted his offers to fall short of the six-year, $162 million contract previously obtained by another power lefty in Carlos Rodon.
He instead joined the Giants in late March, missing most of spring training and struggling mightily at the start of the 2024 season. Six starts in, Snell held a 9.51 ERA and was headed to the injured list for a second time with a groin strain. When he returned, Snell performed like one of the game’s best pitchers to finish at 5-3 with a 3.12 ERA and 145 strikeouts (and just 44 walks) in 104 innings over 20 starts, making his decision to opt out a no-brainer.
In 14 starts from early July to late September, the 31-year-old left-hander posted a 1.23 ERA with 114 strikeouts and 30 walks in 80⅓ innings. On Aug. 2, he threw a no-hitter against the Cincinnati Reds. In eight other instances, he completed at least six innings and allowed no more than two runs.
He was sidelined between April 19 and May 22 by a strained left adductor and between June 2 and July 9 by a strained left groin.
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Snell took the league by storm with the Rays in 2018, leading the majors with 21 wins and pacing the AL with a 1.89 ERA. He was solid over the ensuing four years, continually missing bats at an elite level, but his ERA jumped to 3.85 during that stretch.
Overall, he is 76-58 with a 3.19 ERA in nine MLB seasons. The only pitcher in the majors over the past two seasons with at least 250 innings and a lower ERA than Snell is the Detroit Tigers’ Tarik Skubal.
Snell’s $36.4 million average salary would rank as the fifth-highest among active deals next year behind Ohtani ($70 million), Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Zack Wheeler ($42 million), New York Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge ($40 million) and Texas Rangers right-hander Jacob deGrom ($37 million).
The Dodgers are currently +400 favorites to win the 2025 World Series at ESPN BET. There has not been a repeat World Series champion since the Yankees won three straight titles from 1998 to 2000. It’s the longest drought without a repeat champion in MLB history.
ESPN’s Alden Gonzalez, ESPN Research and The Associated Press contributed to this report.