Snell, who intends to opt out of a $30 million salary and test free agency again this winter, scratched himself from his scheduled start Saturday. The Giants announced late Friday night that right-hander Tristan Beck would take the ball in Snell’s place against the St. Louis Cardinals.
The late scratch punctuated a remarkably odd season that involved the use of every shifted keystroke: question marks for a first half defined by injuries and inconsistency, exclamation points for a second half that might have been even more dominant than his Cy Young Award-winning run the previous season with the San Diego Padres, dollar signs for the $32 million the Giants paid him to make just 20 starts, and perhaps a few more — #@&*% should cover it — for the frustration felt by a front office and coaching staff tasked with managing a player who was capable of so much brilliance yet came with an annoyance of special instructions attached to him.
“Sure, we would have liked him to (start on Saturday),” said Giants manager Bob Melvin, who also managed Snell in San Diego last year. “But he came to the decision that was best for him.”
In that regard, Snell acted with consistency and predictability. He said he would have pitched Saturday to protect the integrity of the game if either team were competing to qualify for the playoffs or to improve their potential seeding. He opted against taking the mound after “talking about it with people very close to me and thought that this was best.”
“We’re not playing a playoff team,” Snell said. “This game has no meaning. I think it was just probably the best case.”
And the Giants were OK with that?
“To me, yeah, fine,” Snell said. “They’re understanding of it and my position.”
The game was not totally meaningless, though. The Giants needed to win Saturday and Sunday to finish with a .500 record — a cosmetic goal, perhaps, but also a matter of pride for coaches and players who want to end the year on a positive note. There’s also the matter of representing themselves well against the Cardinals, who were 4-0 against the Giants this season and dealt them a stinging loss in the Negro Leagues tribute game at Rickwood Field in June.
The Giants internally have not expressed a tremendous amount of confidence in a reunion, but Snell did his part Saturday. He reiterated that he would be open to coming back and said he's looking forward to talking to president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi.
"I love it here. I think we can be really, really good," he said. "I see a lot of promise and I enjoy being here. We'll see what happens. It sucks, I don't like the whole having to decide and all that. I just want to be somewhere that wants me and loves me and will invest in me to be the best player I can be to help them win. I liked it here. I hope it's here. We'll see."
The Giants hoped Snell would be the one to put them over the top this season, but he had an unimaginably rough first half after signing so late in the spring. Snell felt he was in pitching shape when he arrived, but soon found he wasn't ready. San Francisco wanted him to take the ball on their first road trip, putting Snell on the active roster to start the season, but he didn't pitch until their 11th game, and didn't pitch well initially.
Snell had a 9.51 ERA through his first six starts and twice strained his adductor. The second injury allowed him to reset and have a mini-spring training, and he has been the best pitcher in baseball since returning.
Over his final 14 starts, Snell posted a 1.23 ERA, 1.77 FIP and struck out 114 batters in 80 1/3 innings.
"I've been around some pretty good pitching before -- Randy Johnson, Curt Schilling -- I don't remember this kind of a run," manager Bob Melvin said. "It's been as good as anything I've seen or anybody has seen. After a little bit of a rocky start and some injuries, he put a lot of work in to get himself in this position, so give him credit for that. It's been an incredible run."
It seemed no-hitter watch was on every five days, and Snell did actually throw his first, one of several performances in which he extended his pitch count, seemingly sending a message to executives around the league.
Snell said that whichever team gets him this offseason will find he is more durable than people think. He has been careful with his arm the last two seasons, in large part because of how much money is on the line, and he said he's ready to take the constraints off.
"All I want to do is pitch," he said. "It sucks, too, just because I have to be smart, and that's just where I'm at right now, but once I sign that deal it's just pitching, pitching, pitching. I love doing that. That's all I truly care about."
It'll be up to front offices to decide how much they're willing to bet on those beliefs. By the time the Giants got the expected version of Snell, it was just about too late for the team, but Snell says he has no regrets about the way everything played out. He expects to sign earlier this time around and have a normal spring, but if this is it for him as a Giant, he won't be looking back and wondering what might have been.
"I wouldn't change a thing. It all happened for a reason. Me wanting to change anything that happened, I feel like that would be wrong," Snell said. "It all happened the way it should have happened, I believe that. I learned from that. I've never been in that position. When I said I was ready, I was wrong, but I really did believe I was ready. I was working as hard as I could away from spring training and doing everything I could to be ready. In those moments when I said I wasn't ready, it was the truth. There's no way for me to justify, 'Oh, I'm ready' and then you go face big league hitters and get out there and it was like, 'Wow, I'm not even close to where I thought I was.'
"And I had those conversations. No, I wouldn't undo a thing. It all happened the right way, the way it was supposed to happen. I learned a lot, I learned a lot about myself and just being smarter next time, but also hopefully I won't have to repeat it."
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