As of Wednesday, there still seemed little chance the New York Yankees and Blake Snell — widely considered the best starting pitcher remaining on the market — will wind up reaching an agreement for this season, a person with knowledge of the team’s personnel decisions told The Athletic. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to speak freely.
Snell, according to the source, is at this point likely angling for a shorter-term deal worth big-time money and opt-out clauses — not unlike the contract outfielder Cody Bellinger, a fellow client of agent Scott Boras, signed with the Chicago Cubs on Sunday. The Cubs announced the deal Tuesday. Bellinger’s contract is worth $80 million over three years, but it allows him to opt out after each of the first two seasons, giving him the chance to score an even bigger payday next winter.
As The Athletic reported last week, that type of pact almost certainly wouldn’t work for the Yankees, who had a longer-term offer with no opt-outs on the table for Snell before they signed starting pitcher Marcus Stroman to a two-year, $37 million deal with a third-year vesting option. The Yankees, the source said, would be inclined to reduce the luxury tax pain they would incur for the 2024 season through any further potential signings.
Owner Hal Steinbrenner has said the Yankees’ luxury tax payroll is over $300 million. FanGraphs and Cot’s Contracts each peg it at about $307 million. The league’s highest luxury tax threshold this season is $297 million, and the Yankees must pay 110 percent in penalties on every dollar spent above the mark.
For example, if the Yankees were to sign Snell to a one-year deal worth $30 million, it would actually cost them $63 million in total — and they would also have to surrender two draft choices and $1 million in international bonus pool money since Snell rejected the San Diego Padres’ qualifying offer.
A deal that would enable Snell to opt out after just one season would likely be too costly for the Yankees, the source said. That explains why the Yankees’ offer to Snell included no opt-outs.
Any addition to the starting rotation would likely bump Clarke Schmidt from his role as fifth starter. But since that’s improbable, the Yankees will be relying heavily on the 28-year-old to prove he deserves a second full season in the rotation.
Manager Aaron Boone said he’s excited to see Schmidt’s progress.
“I don’t want to put a cap on him,” Boone said. “The reality is, we’ve seen him get better and better.”
Schmidt said taking major lumps in his first season as a big-league starter taught him something valuable.
“If you can weather the storm of having an 8-whatever ERA in New York,” he said, “you can handle anything.”
The right-hander wasn’t supposed to be in the starting rotation last year. But spring injuries to Carlos Rodón, Nestor Cortes and Frankie Montas meant that Schmidt had to step up. It didn’t go all too well at first.
Through Schmidt’s first nine starts, he had a 6.30 ERA, allowing a .310 batting average against and a .917 OPS. But then things started to click. Through his final 24 games (23 starts), he had a 4.08 ERA, which drops to 3.55 if you pull out an eight-run, 2 1/3-inning implosion against the Braves on Aug. 14.
Schmidt finished with a 4.64 ERA in 33 games (32 starts) in 159 innings — by far a career high. Boone said the Yankees didn’t plan on putting any workload limits this season on Schmidt, whom he said likely started to run out of gas toward the end of 2023.
“He never lost confidence,” Boone said. “He never lost focus. Then he put together a really strong 4 1/2 or five months — after Gerrit (Cole), he was the guy we could kind of hang our hat on. Hopefully there’s another step in that.”
Schmidt said he made some changes to his pitch package for this season. In an effort to have more success vs. lefties, he’s changed his curveball to have more depth and to arrive a tick slower to the plate. He added that he’s tried to also sharpen the shapes of his sinker and cutter to give them different looks from each other.
Learning at the side of Cole — the 2023 American League Cy Young Award winner — also paid off, Schmidt said.
“He’s really taken me under his wing and helped me out,” Schmidt said. “Whether it was early in the season when you’re going through some struggles or when things are going really good and how to keep them that way.”
Last week, Boone said he didn’t think “you can find a more confident guy” than Schmidt, the son of a former Marine pilot. The Yankees are banking on that confidence paying dividends, since they seem unwilling to pay Snell, a two-time Cy Young Award winner, to bolster the front end of their rotation as they try to end their 14-year World Series drought.
“He’s always felt like he’s the guy,” Boone said of Schmidt. “Even as he was trying to break into the big leagues and then stay in the big leagues. He’s always had that about him and it’s something that serves him well.”
(Top photo of Clarke Schmidt: New York Yankees/Getty Images)
