Mariano Rivera says the Yankees are ready for the World Series
Yankees icon Mariano Rivera sat down with USA TODAY Sports to talk about the current Yankees roster and their chances of making it back to the World Series.
WASHINGTON — From one perspective, Blake Snell is solidly middle-aged as a major league player, nine years into a career in which few are lucky enough to spend even half that amount of time. At 31, he looks back on his 2011 draft year and his face scrunches up as he thinks about the time that has passed.
“I’m old, man,” says Snell, now a San Francisco Giant and surrounded by teammates like babyface pitcher Hayden Birdsong, who was just 10 years old when Snell’s professional career began.
Viewed from another perspective, Snell is still at the very beginning.
Oh, his accomplishments are lofty enough: Snell is one of only seven players to win a Cy Young Award in both the American and National Leagues, he’s pitched in a World Series, been an All-Star, won two ERA titles and has more than $110 million in guaranteed career earnings.
But the shattering of perception and the attempt to create his own reality have followed Snell throughout his decade in the major leagues.
This is reflected in the game’s ultimate currency, when no contract offers worthy of a franchise pitcher surfaced in the winter following his second Cy Young Award, and Snell was forced to accept a two-year guarantee and a $32 million salary this year from the Giants – essentially an industry-wide “show me one” contract.
And from the comments of the game’s experts and fans who still view Snell through the “five and dive” personality lens, it is clear that he lacks the efficiency to pitch long in games and that his image as a left-hander is that of a left-hander whom manager Kevin Cash sent off in the decisive sixth game of the 2020 World Series after 5 ⅓ innings and only 73 pitches.
And that is why Friday evening and the four starts before it are so important.
Snell had never gone eight innings, never seen the ninth, and had a big zero in the “CG” column when he faced the Cincinnati Reds. He threw 114 almost entirely excellent pitches and one no-hitter, breaking all career records, etching his name in the game’s history, and capping one of the most dominant months in recent history.
Since coming off the injured list on July 10, Snell has allowed two runs (0.55 ERA) and 41 strikeouts with 10 walks in 44 innings. Opponents have a .078 batting average (8-for-103), the lowest average against them in a five-start period in the modern era.
Can a guy with two Cy Youngs on his shelf somehow usher in a newer, better era?
“I feel like I’m getting better every year,” Snell said. “And I feel like my best days as a player are definitely still ahead of me.”
Winter of discontent
To cynics, that may sound like politics. Snell’s tough winter means he can be a free agent again after this season if he opts out of a $30 million player option for 2025; his brilliant five-start streak all but ensures he will.
If this happens, Snell will not follow the motto “Even if you’re bitten, you’ll fear the fire.”
He bears no ill will toward agent Scott Boras, who had to navigate the volatile free-agent market that included Snell, his current Giants teammate Matt Chapman, Cubs hitter Cody Bellinger and Arizona left-hander Jordan Montgomery, who changed agents after the so-called “Boras Four” accepted short-term contracts instead of the nine-figure sums they expected.
Still, Snell is prepared should he find himself on the market again, where his perception might differ somewhat from reality.
“When I’m back in this position, I’m going to do some things very differently,” Snell says. “I want to market myself better so that teams see what they’re investing in. So that they know what kind of player they’re getting and how committed I am to baseball.”
“I don’t let a lot out. I admit that I like video games and I joke around. But when it comes to baseball, it’s totally different for me. I don’t joke about that.”
In fact, Snell’s perception may be a little off from reality. At times, it seemed like he was constantly online – he once expressed remarkable candor in a Twitch stream – but he’s working on it. He says he “got off Twitter for a reason. Twitter is terrible. It’s terrible.”
Snell’s baseball credentials were not entirely unassailable. Even when he won the NL Cy Young in 2023, he led the majors with 99 walks and 5.8 hits per nine innings. He had never pitched more than the 180 ⅔ and 180 innings he averaged in his Cy Young seasons.
As the winter progressed, his performances seemed to lose their luster, the blemishes on his resume grew, and Snell’s coping mechanism reached a higher level.
“I can’t change what happened, so it doesn’t bother me,” said Snell, who didn’t sign with the Giants until March 18, delaying the start of his season and partially leading to two stints on the injured list. “There are moments when you want to compare (contracts) and you say, ‘This doesn’t make sense.’ The only thing that matters in that moment is myself, so why would I compare? ‘Oh, why can’t I get this?’ It didn’t matter.
“At first I had that attitude. And then, as time went on, I became much calmer. I go where I’m supposed to go. A team that recognizes my value will understand. I took it personally and it’s much better this way.”
Next winter also promises to be much better.
Great unity parallels?
Bryan Price has seen a lot.
The pitching coach of the San Francisco Giants has spent almost a quarter of a century in the Major Leagues in this job or as a manager and can report on numerous glorious pitching runs.
He finds it hard to compare anything to the way the ball is jumping out of Snell’s left hand right now – a 98-mile-per-hour fastball that gobbles up batters, or Snell’s signature curveball, which he throws at a higher strike rate – 26.1% – than at any time in his career.
“It’s not just top-notch because of the speed or the way the ball spins,” says Price, who joined longtime partner Bob Melvin in their first year in San Francisco. “It’s just how crisp and executed it was over the last four or five attempts.”
“When he goes on the field, you think: If he’s in the zone, it’s not a big surprise that you have seven scoreless innings. Or a complete game without conceding a goal.
“Or possibly a no-hitter. Because his stuff is so good.”
While talking to Snell, Price casually throws in another name – Randy Johnson – and not necessarily to compare the Giants’ stuff with the 6-foot-2 Hall of Famer.
No, it’s more about career progression, because Snell, as Price says, was never a “command and control guy.” Still, he suggests that we may be witnessing a great pitcher develop into an even better and more effective weapon later in life.
And indeed, 1995, when Johnson was 31, was perhaps his last big leap: He won his first Cy Young, struck out 294 batters, and set career highs in ERA (2.48) and WHIP (1.05).
“And now Blake is doing some of the things at this stage that Randy Johnson did when he really got behind it in Seattle, Houston and Arizona – combining incredible things with elite command skills,” Price says.
“If Blake keeps this up, he will be at the helm of the company for another ten years.”
It’s been a rocky road to getting body, mind and emotions on the same level. Snell was devastated when the Rays traded him to San Diego, less than three months after the World Series disappointment and just two years into a five-year, $50 million contract that he felt represented a commitment to Tampa Bay.
He admitted that he came to San Diego and “didn’t know how to handle it,” he says, “I just tried to be what I thought the team would accept. I had never been on a new team before.”
“When I came here, I didn’t care about acceptance. I just wanted to be myself. I was very confident. When I went to San Diego, I was more concerned with fitting in.”
Two injury-plagued seasons with a 3.79 ERA followed, and although Snell had a Cy Young season in 1923, the Padres’ high hopes faded in an 82-win season. Melvin went to the Giants.
Snell and Chapman, vagabonds on the loose, soon joined him in the absence of more permanent offers. Snell, a Seattle native, could look back on his time in the Bay Area as a stopover. Perhaps a long-term relationship will develop.
For now, the growth continues. The carefree Tampa Bay boy now has a two-month-old son, Kaedyn, and, despite an uncertain winter, more professional conviction that seems to grow with each start.
“There’s a reason I’m successful and a reason I’m trying to get more out of my abilities,” he says. “My ninth season: I’ve tried so many things and made mistakes and learned and grown and got better every year.”
“I trust it. It’s all the result of hard work. The belief, the feeling, that’s where everything comes from.”
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