Giants’ Blake Snell won’t be ready for Opening Day, anticipates return soon after

The San Francisco Giants won’t have their new prized pitcher on the mound when they begin the 2024 season.

Blake Snell is still working to ramp himself up to be ready for the season, but he won’t be good to go by Opening Day, he told NBC Sports Bay Area. The lefty added that while he’s been in the 60-pitch range in his personal pitching sessions, they came without the adrenaline of facing major league hitters.

It’s still unclear when Snell will be ready, though there should be more clarity soon. He’ll have a bullpen session on Thursday, a week from Opening Day, and the Giants will chart out a schedule for him from there.

It doesn’t seem like Snell is too far off from being ready to pitch, though. After throwing a four-inning, 60-pitch simulated game for scouts on Friday, Snell indicated that there aren’t many hurdles left for him to pitch in a big league game.

“I could probably get into a game … we’re talking about it,” Snell told reporters on Wednesday. “We’ll see. I throw a bullpen tomorrow, we’re going to go from there. But I feel really good, I feel strong, so it should be soon.”

Snell joined the Giants in an unprecedented manner earlier this week. After winning the National League Cy Young award with the San Diego Padres last season, Snell remained unsigned through the offseason and nearly all of spring training before agreeing to a two-year, $62 million deal with the Giants on Monday.

Where Snell’s spot in the rotation will be is unclear. The Giants haven’t officially named their Opening Day starter, but it will almost certainly be Logan Webb, who might have gotten the nod even if Snell joined the team sooner. The 27-year-old has been the Giants’ Opening Day starter the last two seasons and was the runner-up to Snell in last year’s Cy Young voting.

While Snell didn’t know who he’d pitch for in 2024 until Monday, he said he remained ready to go whenever he got signed, but he also shared he got anxious during his conversations with agent Scott Boras.

“It was a long time,” Snell said. “It was something, I know Scott got annoyed hearing from me, but we had a good plan. Over time, we got lost in that plan and got pretty committed to it. Early on, I was like, ‘What’s happening?’ all the time. As the process went, just got kind of lost in what I was doing. Kind of had my own spring that was more intact with that.”

Snell is the second star Boras client the Giants signed in March, adding third baseman Matt Chapman on a one-year deal on March 3. Boras, who had four standout clients either sign after spring training or remained unsigned as of Wednesday, said he was holding out for the best deal for his players. However, he added that both Snell and Chapman wanted to play for new Giants manager Bob Melvin again.

“It’s kind of like hockey — unless you have a hat trick, you’re really not doing your job,” Boras said. “We kind of built the momentum. When you talk about success points for players, what they do and how they do it, Bob has actually cost me a lot of money this offseason. I have players who really, really like playing for Bob. They’re successful with him.”