Tampa Bay’s Blake Snell as good or better than advertised !!!
Lost in all the hoopla of what was a pretty busy weekend of sports that included the NBA and NHL playoffs, baseball,
golf, Nascar, the return of Jon Jones to the UFC, boxing and lead up to the NFL Draft was a little notation from Saturday’s
3-2 Yankee win over Tampa Bay. It was the MLB debut of a young Ray southpaw named Blake Snell. The name won’t
mean much to most of you right now but put Blake Snell in the memory bank now and you’ll make plenty of money down
the road.
My baseball people people brought Snell to my attention in the spring as one of the better young guns in baseball that
could make some noise in the summer. The lanky 6’4″ 180 pound lefty out of Shoreline, Washington was taken in the
first round of the 2011 draft and has worked his up through the Ray system. He was USA Today’s minor league Player
of the Year for 2015. Snell looks about 13 but don’t let that deceive you. This kid has major league stuff with some big
time pop on his fast ball.
We knew Snell would not break North with the team to start the year in move that would keep him off the contract clock
much the same way Tampa Bay did year’s ago with David Price and several other of the good young arms that have come
through the Tampa Bay system in recent years. This was a spot start that saw Snell pitch five strong innings of one-run
two-hit ball with the 23-year-old walking just one and striking out six while getting a no-decision.
Looking at the start a bit more closely, we see just how impressive it was. Snell has four pitches that he can go to at any
time. He depends on the fastball which averaged out at 95 over 50 pitches and topped out at 97. He’s has a sneaky curve
with a big drop that averages 74 MPH or 20 full miles-per-hour slower than the fastball. Rise on the fastball and drop with
the curve is bound to cause hitters fits. He threw the curve 16 times dropping it in for strikes seven times. It was swung on
and missed twice. A straight change and backdoor slider are works in progress but are still weapons in the arsenal.
With the Rays not likely to contend in a not too stacked but ultra-competitive A.L. East, we likely won’t see Snell again until
around June 1st. Lock it up, when you do see him and if the weak hitting Rays can give him any kind of run support, we’ll
all be cashing lots of nice priced tickets!