Will ‘Empire of Evil’ Died By Yamamoto Turn to CY Winner…Yankees Offer Contracts to Snell

Will the New York Yankees be able to successfully sign a big fish this time? It was reported that the Yankees offered Blake Snell (31) a contract.

The New York Post reported on the 12th (Korea time) that the Yankees offered Snell a contract. Snell, who played for the San Diego Padres last year, won the National League Cy Young Award with 14 wins and 9 losses and an ERA of 2.25. After winning the American League Cy Young Award for the Tampa Bay Rays in 2018, he achieved the true record of the two major league Cy Young Awards in five years.

He hit the market with the highest value, but not many teams are looking for Snell. Snell, who won the Cy Young Award twice, has 71 wins and 55 losses with an ERA of 3.20. Except for 2018 and 2023, when he won the Cy Young Award, he has experienced ups and downs so far that he has never played regular innings. Last year, he lost few runs, but he still had ups and downs in his ball control, with five walks per nine innings. Snell himself appealed to his hometown team, the Seattle Mariners, and even said, “I’m okay with the Yankees.”

In the meantime, a team finally announced its intention to recruit Snell. It is the Yankees that Snell said was okay with. New York Post columnist John Hayman reported on Wednesday that the Yankees offered Snell a contract. However, a contract is not a very promising one. “There is a wide gap between Snell’s demand and the amount offered by the club,” Hayman said. Local media reported that Snell’s demand this winter was in the range of 200 million U.S. dollars to 240 million dollars.

If Snell is hired, the Yankees’ starting lineup is literally made up of luxury goods. The ace, Gerrit Cole, has been playing as an ace every year since he signed a $324 million (nine-year) contract in 2020. He also won his first Cy Young Award last year with 15 wins, four losses and an earned run average of 2.63. Carlos Rodón, one of the second starters, signed a $162 million contract with the Yankees last year. In his first year, he collapsed with three wins, eight losses and an earned run average of 6.85 due to injury and sluggishness, but in 2022, he ranked sixth in voting for the Cy Young Award with 14 wins, eight losses and an earned run average of 2.88. If Snell, the winners of the Cy Young Award in the two major leagues, join the team, the annual salary of the three players alone will reach $90 million.

Initially, the Yankees wanted to fill the spot with Yoshinobu Yamamoto of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Yamamoto, who won four gold medals, a Sawamura Award and an MVP award in the Japanese professional baseball league for three consecutive years, was named the biggest fish to be a pitcher this winter, beating Snell. As soon as the Stove League opened, the Yankees, who immediately signed a trade with Juan Soto, had to beef up their starting pitchers to compete for the title. The Yankees also had to deal with the massive bleeding of promising pitchers during the Soto trade. The Yankees offered an all-time contract worth 300 million U.S. dollars for eight years, but Yamamoto headed to the Dodgers, which offered the longest period and highest amount as a pitcher with 325 million dollars for 12 years. 마카오토토

Some predicted that he might not be able to recruit a major starting pitcher after the failed recruitment of Yamamoto, but he seems to have turned to Snell, which has some risks. Of course, if he succeeds, he will be a “jackpot.” As Snell played in the American League East when he was playing for Tampa Bay, he has high possibility of adapting himself to the game. If he reproduces his performance in 2023, he could be the spearhead for the Yankees to regain the district championship.