Snell’s Ascension: Dodgers Poised to Unlock Ace Full Potential

There’s a firm belief within the Dodgers that two-time Cy Young Award winner Blake Snell can be even better as he moves toward his mid-30s.

Snell, one day away from his 32nd birthday, was introduced as a Dodger at Dodger Stadium on Tuesday, three days after one of the prized free agents on the market signed a five-year deal with the club.

While he talked about his excitement to join the Dodgers and add to a roster stocked with five-star talent, others talked about the kind of impact he could make for the defending World Series champions in their quest to add more titles.

“In conversations, we think his desire to be great is incredibly genuine, and we think he’s got the weapons and things in place to do that,” said Andrew Friedman, Dodgers president of baseball operations. “And usually in Major League free agency, you’re buying the backside of a guy’s career. We think there are really compelling things in place that could lead to this next five-, six-, seven-, eight-year period being the best of his career.”

Snell had the best ERA (2.82) and FIP (2.98), the highest strikeouts per nine innings (12.0) and the lowest opponents’ batting average (.191), slugging percentage (.298) and OPS (.584) from 2022–2024 among Major League pitchers with at least 75 starts.

Snell led all Major League pitchers (minimum 10 starts) with a 1.45 second-half ERA in 2024 and had the lowest opponents’ batting average (.133), slugging percentage (.189) and OPS (.412). He ranked second in strikeouts per nine innings (13.6). This came after a first half in which he had two stints on the injured list.

“Usually when I get a rhythm, I can really take that (through) the rest of the season,” Snell said. “So (it was) just learning through those first two hiccups. And then as I started end of June, early July, somewhere in there, I was really confident from my rehab starts going into that that I’d be able to kind of take this all the way and start dominating.”

“That stretch in the second half last year is about as dominant as a pitcher could possibly be,” Freidman said.

Freidman said that beyond the surface statistics, there are other areas where Snell is improving. After winning the National League Cy Young Award in 2023, he was better in 2024 at putting batters in a hole. Strike percentage, first-strike percentage and 0–2 percentages all climbed significantly. One of the few knocks on the elite hurler has been a high walk rate. That also fell from 5.0 in 2023 to 3.8 in 2024.

“You see a guy that has had some of his challenges in terms of walk rate, and you think, ‘OK, he doesn’t really know where his ball is going, but he’s got great stuff.’ He actually has really good command,” Friedman said. “The problem is he’s really hard to hit, so therefore most pitchers can end an at-bat earlier than he can on a ball in play. Blake is so challenging to hit that at-bats often don’t end — whether it’s fouled off or just locks them up and they take it, and it’s a ball. I think there’s some pitch selection, pitch usage, just different things that can help just an extra little bit (going forward).”

Friedman has known Snell since he was 18 years old. The former Tampa Bay Rays executive drafted the former Washington high school pitcher in the first round of the 2011 First-Year Player Draft. The two were on different sides during the 2020 World Series — Snell pitching for the Rays and Friedman leading the Dodgers’ baseball operations department. Now they’re reunited.

During a recent conversation, Snell talked to Friedman about the deciding Game 6 of that 2020 World Series. Snell was pulled by manager Kevin Cash with one out in the sixth inning and the Rays leading 1–0. The Dodgers scored two runs in the frame after Snell departed and went on to win the game 3–1 and the World Series.

“I don’t look into that game as much as everyone else,” Snell said. “It was just a moment in time that I learned from. I told Andrew, if I wanted to stay out there longer, I should have done a better job before that game to make that decision easier on Kevin. So it’s ultimately up to me to be a better pitcher and earn that moment.”

It was just another impressive characteristic from Snell and a sign of the continued growth and maturity of an already elite pitcher.