Former San Francisco Giants starter Blake Snell is joining the reigning world champion Los Angeles Dodgers on a five-year, $182 million deal, which he first tipped off on his Instagram late Tuesday night. The massive deal comes after Snell spent a roller coaster ride of a season in San Francisco on a contract that had a unique clause that is set to see the Giants actually pay Snell millions to now pitch against them.
When Snell signed with the Giants in mid-March, Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle reported that Snell’s entire $17 million signing bonus would be deferred to January 2026. (The Chronicle and SFGATE are both owned by Hearst but have separate newsrooms.) Snell got $15 million in salary during 2024 but is still slated to get that entire signing bonus next winter — meaning the left-hander would get a paycheck from the Giants AFTER his first full season with the Dodgers.
Various MLB insiders are still reporting the particulars of Snell’s Dodgers contract, but according to Jack Harris of the Los Angeles Times, Snell is getting a $52 million signing bonus from the Dodgers and is deferring $60 million of his salary. It’s very possible the Giants will end up paying Snell more money in 2026 than the Dodgers.
It’s a fitting final note for the 2023 NL Cy Young winner’s brief and rocky stint with the orange and black. The first few months went about as poorly as imaginable, with Snell either out of the rotation (because he was hurt, first with an adductor strain and then a groin injury) or getting pummeled on the mound while throwing shade at the Giants.
But when Snell returned to the majors in July while sporting a 9.51 ERA in just 23.2 innings pitched after his first six starts, he showed he was the superstar everyone hoped for. In his final 14 starts, Snell went 5-0 with a 1.23 ERA and 114 strikeouts in 80.1 innings and even threw his first career no-hitter on Aug. 2 in Cincinnati.
The Giants and then-president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi didn’t dump Snell at the trade deadline despite interest around baseball, with Zaidi saying afterward he thought the team had the “best rotation in baseball.” While Snell did his part, the rest of the team did not, as the Giants fell into another pit of mediocrity.
Now, with Zaidi fired and Buster Posey taking over, the Giants will get to deal with the aftermath of the Snell deal — including losing their third-round pick in the 2024 MLB Draft and a significant chunk of their international bonus pool money — while facing Snell on the mound up to four times a year.
But hey, at least Madison Bumgarner is thinking about coming back to the Giants organization?