Blake Snell

BP

Snell is up to 44 strikeouts against 12 walks in 32 Triple-A innings. His stuff is too overwhelming for minor-league hitters. While I get what the Rays are trying to do in concept, this could just be a situation where Snell needs to do his learning at the major-league level. http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=32070


BP

Like Mazara, Snell was an elite dynasty prospect heading into 2016 (No. 18). Snell’s first MLB season featured its fair share of ups (24.4 K%) and downs (12.7 BB%). That’s basically what we saw from Snell throughout his minor league career, too; an ability to miss bats, but with way too many free passes. That’s all well and good from a then-23-year-old, and Snell’s ERA of 3.54, was, well, all well and good as well. But DRA tells a more damning story (4.56), and Snell did some WHIP damage last year, too (1.62). We can’t reasonably expect all of Snell’s command issues to dissipate over the course of one offseason, but there’s reason for optimism. All throughout his minor league career, Snell showed an ability to adjust and improve his second time at a level, and his walk rates diminished in Triple-A in 2015. Snell is also working with a staff that’s had a lot of success developing young arms, and he saw last season that racking up the strikeouts won’t be an issue. Snell is also great at limiting homers, and Tropicana should help to further enhance that strength. Add it all up and you don’t get an SP4/5 quite yet, but you do get someone with that type of upside. Why people are drafting Michael Pineda and Jharel Cotton above him is beyond me. http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=31416