Blake Snell whiff puts even more pressure on Yu Darvish and AJ Preller
The Dodgers made the first big move of the 2024 offseason, and now it’s up to San Diego to follow suit.
The Los Angeles Dodgers signing Blake Snell to a five-year, $182 million deal on Tuesday night delivered a message to every other team in the league that the bar had been raised even higher entering 2025. But that’s especially true for the San Diego Padres, L.A.’s primary competition in the NL West — and the team that game within just one game from bouncing the Dodgers out of the postseason for the second time in the last three years.
For as close as the Padres came to reaching the NLCS and beyond this past season, the climb will only get steeper next year, with the Dodgers adding a two-time Cy Young winner to their rotation (and Shohei Ohtani returning to the mound). And with Manny Machado not getting any younger and Dylan Cease, Michael King and Luis Arraez entering contract years, the time is now for San Diego to maximize its championship window. Which means the Padres are really, really feeling the heat right now — and if they want to finally get over the World Series hump, they’re going to need their general manager and one player in particular to help get some revenge on L.A.
The Dodgers already have Snell in the fold, but they’re far from done adding to the rotation. For as high as Snell’s ceiling is, he’s not the most reliable ace out there, and Ohtani, Tyler Glasnow, Clayton Kershaw and Bobby Miller are all major question marks (health or otherwise) entering 2025. Andrew Friedman is going to add at least one more arm this winter, and it’s clera who’s at the top of his wish list: Japanese ace Roki Sasaki, who figures to be among the most coveted free agents of the offseason.
