Brief SF Giants ace Blake Snell turns heel and joins the Dodgers

Well, that is not the news we wanted to hear. Former SF Giants ace Blake Snell has reportedly signed a five-year $182 million contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers. The guy who was the best pitcher for the Giants in the second half of 2024 is now going to pitch for their dreaded rival.

In many ways, this news should not come as a massive shock even if Snell should have been a high priority for San Francisco. We always had the sense that Snell was a mercenary and nothing more. He does not really care who he pitches for, he is just going to go to whoever gives him the fattest check. He went to the Giants last offseason only because he could not secure a long-term deal elsewhere, and now the Dodgers, the Saudi Arabia of MLB teams with seemingly limitless money to print, have decided they are comfortable giving him the long-term deal he craves.

SF Giants lose backstabbing Blake Snell to the Dodgers

Let's start with the best-case scenario for the Giants. Perhaps Snell has reached his peak and at 32 years old next season he will begin his decline for the rest of his career. That is not impossible after all. We saw how bad he looked in the first half of 2024 and how his injuries piled up after he signed late in Spring Training.

On the other hand, his ultra-dominant second half which included a no-hitter raises the possibility that the Dodgers could be getting a guy still very much in his prime who could deliver several years of Cy Young-level pitching for them.

While we had a fair idea Snell was not going to come back to the Giants, one cannot help but feel a little bit played by the traitorous left-hander. He represents what so many people detest about professional sports. He embodies the same thing that Kevin Durant embodied when he joined the Golden State Warriors: the rich getting richer.

Any free agent who joins the Dodgers at this point must be accused of cowardice on some level. The fact that they are willingly participating in the hostile takeover of the sport by a team with ungodly wealth is not something to be celebrated, it is greedy and lazy at its core. Whatever dynasty the Dodgers are trying to build is ultimately shallow. It is built upon hired guns and free agents and is empty inside. There is no heart and soul. It is as contrived and soulless as so many of the films that Hollywood churns out on a yearly basis that are flashy but leave you feeling empty when you walk out of the theater.

It is a shame that Snell has decided to participate in this sham but not at all surprising. We should have known when he refused to pitch in his final start of the year and declared the game meaningless that he was not a true Giant. He wore the uniform but he did not care about "memory making" as Buster Posey has talked about. He cares about himself which is why he went to a city known for selfishness, greed, and vapidness.

The Giants will have to face him plenty over the next 5 years. Let's just hope they can get some measure of redemption against him and make him feel sorry that he took the quick and easy path.