Post All-Star Break Blake Snell Needs To Be Studied

The former Cy Young winner is always better in the second half.

Blake Snell has had an interesting year. He held out for a contract and missed spring training, being picked up relatively late by the San Francisco Giants. The first half of his season was an awful look. He was 0-3 with a 6.31 ERA in 8 games. However, we’re dealing with post All-Star break Blake Snell now. He’s posting a 0.86 ERA with 30 strikeouts over three games, one of those being a no-hitter. Turns out he’s always been like this.

Using StatMuse, it is easy to track this all the way back to Blake Snell’s rookie season with the Tampa Bay Rays. Though the margins are slimmer, the premise holds true. Before the 2016 All-Star game, Snell was 1-4. He had a 3.69 ERA and 27 strikeouts over 6 games. Post All-Star break, Snell slightly cut down his ERA to 3.45, while adding 71 more strikeouts to his total.

Let’s skip slightly ahead to his Cy Young year in 2018. Even before the All-Star break, Blake Snell was absolutely dealing. He was 12-5 with a 2.27 ERA and 134 strikeouts over 20 games. Unbelievably, he got better. Post All-Star game Snell was an absolute monster. He closed out the season undefeated, going 9-0 with a 1.17 ERA and 87 strikeouts in 11 games. His cumulative totals for the season? 21-5, a 1.89 ERA, and an ERA+ of 217. Very few people have so obviously deserved a Cy Young.

The most dramatic difference (so far, at least) was in his 2022 campaign. Snell looked like a shell of his former self heading into the All-Star game. It was his second season in San Diego, and by all appearances, he did not seem worth his contract. In his 10 games pre-break, he was 1-5 with a miserable 5.22 ERA and 66 strikeouts. True to form, he turned it around. Snell finished the second half of the season with a 7-5 record, a 2.19 ERA, and 105 additional strikeouts.

Here’s a year-by-year breakdown, for those unconvinced.

• 2016- BEFORE: 1-4, 3.69 ERA, 27 SO, 6 G AFTER: 5-4, 3.45 ERA, 71 SO, 13 G

• 2017- BEFORE: 0-5, 4.85 ERA, 45 SO, 10 G AFTER: 5-2, 3.49 ERA, 74 SO, 14 G

• 2018- BEFORE: 12-5, 2.27 ERA, 134 SO, 20 G AFTER: 9-0, 1.17 ERA, 87 SO, 11 G

• 2019- BEFORE: 5-7, 4.70 ERA, 122 SO, 18 G AFTER: 1-1, 2.12 ERA, 25 SO, 5 G

• 2021- BEFORE: 3-3, 4.99 ERA, 93 SO, 16 G AFTER: 4-3, 3.24 ERA, 77 SO, 11 G

• 2022- BEFORE– 1-5, 5.22 ERA, 66 SO, 10 G AFTER: 7-5, 2.19 ERA, 105 SO, 14 G

• 2023- BEFORE: 6-7, 2.85 ERA, 132 SO, 18 G AFTER: 8-2, 1.54 ERA, 102 SO, 14 G

• 2024- BEFORE: 0-3, 6.31 ERA, 42 SO, 8 G AFTER: 1-0, 0.86 ERA, 30 SO, 3 G, 1 NO HITTER

There’s still plenty of 2024 left for Snell to break from his norm, but that seems unlikely. He’s thrown his first career no hitter, and has already dropped his season ERA by two whole points. 2024 might become his most dramatic turn around since 2022, if he keeps it up. Most people would like it a lot more if he could do this starting on opening day, but where’s the fun in that? Second half Snell is inevitable.

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