Play of Blake Snell Provides 'What If' Question for San Francisco Giants

What if Blake Snell pitched like he did in 2023 for the San Francisco Giants?

Sep 22, 2024; Kansas City, Missouri, USA; San Francisco Giants starting pitcher Blake Snell (7) pitches during the first inning against the Kansas City Royals at Kauffman Stadium. / Jay Biggerstaff-Imagn Images

As the San Francisco Giants finish up the season, it has been a bit of a disappointing year overall for the franchise. 

Despite a lot of success in recent years, the Giants have missed the playoffs this season and there has been speculation that they could make some changes to the front office. This is going to be a very interesting offseason for San Francisco, as they try to improve the team.

The Giants haven’t been shy about trying to spend money, and they did that to a degree this past offseason. San Francisco made some pretty big splashes, as they brought in Matt Chapman and Blake Snell for some team-friendly deals. 

Chapman has had an excellent campaign overall for the Giants, and the team recently decided to lock up the third baseman long-term. Considering the slugger had an option after the season on the contract he signed last offseason, it was clear that he would be opting out to test free agency once again. 

Since the talented third baseman had the highest WAR on the team by quite some margin, locking him up long-term made a lot of sense. 

Their other big signing, however, had some mixed results this season. Snell got off to a really slow start to the season, as he was riddled with injuries and poor performance. Since the lefty was coming off a Cy Young year, the hope was that he would have a dominant campaign with the Giants. 

While the southpaw has ended up pitching well down the stretch, it begs to ask if San Francisco’s season had been better if he was healthy and pitching up to his capabilities. 

Recently, Joel Reuter of Bleacher Report named Snell’s inconsistency as the biggest ‘What If’ for the Giants this season. 

If Snell was healthy and right for the whole season, it could have had a domino effect and led to a much better season for San Francisco. The talented lefty only started in six games in the first three months of the year, and those starts weren’t very good either. 

Furthermore, if the Giants saw the same pitcher who in 2023 started 32 games and had a 2.25 ERA, they would likely have won a lot more games. However, even if they had that version of Snell, it is hard to imagine that San Francisco would have been able to keep up with the power houses in the National League West.