San Francisco Giants Ace Pegged As Top Available Free Agent Pitcher

The San Francisco Giants are coming off of a disappointing season and now could see their ace leave in free agency after he opted out.

Jay Biggerstaff-Imagn Images

The San Francisco Giants are coming off of one of their more disappointing seasons in the long and storied history of the franchise.

Now three years removed from a 107-win campaign, the sentiment becomes more and more prevalent that it was a fluke and the team's ability is much closer to what they have shown us in the years since.

Things were supposed to be much different this year, even though it was always going to be hard for the Giants to contend with the San Diego Padres and the Los Angeles Dodgers, the latter of which are still celebrating their second World Series Championship of the last five years.

Last offseason, the organization brought in guys like Matt Chapman and the then reigning, defending, undisputed National League Cy Young Award winner Blake Snell.

San Francisco signed Snell to a two-year, $62 million deal, which included a player option for the 2025 season, the one little detail that has turned everything on its head.

Snell chose not to exercise his player option, deciding that he would rather enter the 2025 MLB free agency class.

Keith Law of The Athletic has Snell ranked as the seventh-best available free agent this winter, and the third-best starting pitcher.

"He walks too many guys, but he misses a ton of bats and his stuff generates a lot of weak contact," writes Law, "enough that he can still be an above-average starter even when he’s not winning awards."

Saying that Snell walks too many guys may be an understatement, as even during his 2023 Cy Young campaign, the lefty walked 99 batters, the most in Major League Baseball.

While he was able to cut back on the walks this year, he still gave free bases away more than most with his 10.5 percent walk rate.

Missing bats is Snell's calling card though, and the pitcher has done so with ease for many years now, carrying a 32.1 percent strikeout rate from the beginning of the 2018 season through this year, and has never seen that rate fall below 30 percent in that time.

With Snell officially deciding to opt out of his deal with the Giants and enter free agency, the available starting pitchers on the market have increased.

Snell has proven that he can be the ace on any contending team, with two Cy Young Awards to his name, and could be suiting up for another team as early as Monday.