3 reasons the Cubs should avoid signing Blake Snell

Left-handed pitcher Blake Snell just secured the second Cy Young award of his career after a fantastic season with the San Diego Padres in 2023. Now Snell is a free agent who will almost certainly find a new team this winter with the Padres looking to shed payroll and the Chicago Cubs have been linked as a potential suitor to sign the southpaw.

There's no denying that the Cubs need to add a starting pitcher this offseason, especially after Marcus Stroman opted out of his player option for 2024. Although Snell may seem like a good fit, there are a lot of underlying concerns that drive me to believe the Cubs should steer clear of him and pursue one of the many starting pitchers currently on the market.

Here are three reasons the Cubs should pass on Blake Snell this offseason.

1. He led MLB in walks last year

Remarkably, Snell was able to finish the year with a 2.25 ERA after issuing a whopping 99 free passes. He's only the second pitcher ever to lead the league in walks and still take home the most prestigious pitching trophy available. The last time that happened was in 1959 when Early Wynn won the Cy Young.

To me, that tells me Snell was able to capitalize on his ability to strike out enough batters (234) to work his way out of a lot of jams. Which is both impressive and lucky. This seems like one of those once-in-a-lifetime freak occurrences in baseball and it's really hard to look past 99 walks.

That kind of walk rate puts a lot of pressure on your defense and you can't rely on striking your way out of jams every time. This is an enormous red flag for me and it's one of the reasons I'm apprehensive to give a multi-year deal to Snell.

2. He's only had two great seasons

Another reason to avoid Snell is the fact that he has two great seasons under his belt. Has he had good seasons? Sure. And when he's good, is he elite? You bet and he has two Cy Young awards to prove it. But those seasons are few and far between. Snell has eight big league campaigns under his belt and just two of them are what I would consider elite, 2023 and his AL Cy Young year with the Rays in 2018 where he pitched to a 1.89 ERA with 221 strikeouts.

Those are good numbers, but I'm not convinced that Snell can produce at that level or even close to it over a long-term contract. If he's looking for five to seven years and only pitches one of them to Cy Young's contending caliber, I'd consider that a failure for the amount of money the Cubs would have to give him. I'm not saying he needs to win a Cy Young award for his upcoming contract to work, but I do want to see the Cubs bring in someone with more consistency than Snell.