Minor League Free Agent: Ian Snell
Posted on January 19th, 2011 by Jeff in Projections, tags: Ian Snell
The next few minor league free agents we will take a look at here all have non roster invitations to Spring Training, so other places like Viva El Birdos have picked up the coverage of these players. But, hey, they are minor league free agents, so they might be ours for part of the year at least. Let’s look at Ian Snell, the most promising “name” player picked up this month.
Snell is probably best remembered for his good early years with Pittsburgh in 2006 and 2007 when he pitched 180+ and 200+ innings respectively. In 2008, he had slightly less control and slightly worse luck with a .350 BABIP. Gotta love that Pittsburgh defense. But, he allowed more line drives, which the defense had little chance of stopping. That is where Snell’s decent begins. He was traded in 2009 to Seattle with Jack Wilson and did not have quite a good conversion to the American League. His strikeouts and walks were almost equal at around 5/9 innings.
By the time he made his 2010 debut with the Mariners, his decent was already in full swing even though he still had the ability to induce an above average amount of swinging strikes. Tom at Viva El Birdos points out Snell’s velocity graph at Fangraphs, which has his average fastball velocity dropped a whole MPH between 2007 and 2010. Another bad set of numbers is that his slider and curve ball velocities have not declined either. With the fastball and offspeed pitches at closer velocities, it is understandable how Snell has become more hittable.
However, one positive for Snell is that Bill James’s 2011 projection thinks well of Snell. (I totally didn’t mean to rhyme that, I swear.) James thinks his K/9 will pop back up to over 7 per 9 innings, where it has not been since 2007.
Snell has never been much of a ground ball pitcher, but who knows what a little bit of Dave Duncan Spring Training pixie dust will do for him. Duncan won’t mind the lower velocity or the low strikeout totals, but the low ground ball percentage will not do.
With the Cardinals having a full stable of starting pitchers, Snell will hang with us in the DFRs in Memphis until an injury or bullpen call up. He has put up good numbers in the minor when he was returned there, so do not read much into any great numbers from Memphis. Snell may be lining up to be this year’s Ruben Gotay.
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With his June 1st opt out, he will either turn out to be helpful or gone….quickly. No harm in that unless he takes innings away from someone who needs the experience. I guess we won’t know if that happens until we see how things sort out.
Not necessarily, an opt out isnt a guarantee that he’ll opt out. He’ll only take that if his agent thinks he will have other suitors offering more of an opportunity.
Thank you for taking the other post down. It was scaring me.
1 MPH doesn’t sound like that great a velocity drop. Particularly if his off speed also dropped 1 MPH. I also hope in 3 years a pitcher would learn enough to compensate for such a small drop. A very small, nearly undetectable mechanical change or grip change might be able to account for such a small difference. I’m not overly optimistic about his chances but the small velocity drop doesnt worry me much..
It’s not a ton, but it’s also non-trivial http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/lose-a-tick-gain-a-tick/
If I read the article correctly, the velocity on the junk did NOT drop, which was part of the problem. However, that may be something that a Duncan or other good coach can fix. Or not.
I must admit, I always thought Snell had the potential to be a pretty good pitcher, at least under the right circumstances. Dunc has been “the right circumstances” for more broken-down arms than Snell’s. Unlike the other minor-league deals of the last few days, I think there’s a chance this one may work out. The odds are still against it, but maybe…
i am concerned about his velocity drop, not so much in isolation, but in the context of a drop of his K rate to a replacement value rate, and a jump in his BB rate to the point where he’s walking someone every other inning. if he had remained effective and just lost a mph or so, that would not be as concerning. but with all his other peripherals getting worse in a manner sustained over both 2009 and 2010, i don’t like his chances.
A message to Dave Duncan, you need to turn Ian’s career around in a hurry before it’s too late. Snell! snell!