MLB Rumors: Cubs a mystery suitor for Blake Snell? Connecting dots
Now that Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Shota Imanaga, Aaron Nola (which was so long ago you may have forgotten about it) have all signed, it feels safe to say that the reigning NL Cy Young winner, Blake Snell, is now the big fish still on the market in free agency. Not shockingly there have been no shortage of suitors who are exploring paying top dollar for the southpaw.
MLB insider Jon Heyman has reported that the New York Yankees are one team that has made an offer to Snell, but he remains unsigned amid a host of suitors. That was furthered by USA Today MLB insider Bob Nightengale, who reported on Friday that Snell's market might be quiet publicly but has multiple contenders bidding for his services behind the scenes, shrouding his free agency in mystery.
While the market has been publicly quiet on Cy Young winner Blake Snell, behind the scenes he still has multiple contending teams who continue to express strong interest.
— Bob Nightengale (@BNightengale) January 12, 2024
The free-agent market should start to pick up with spring training just 5 weeks away.
And it's hard not to think that the Chicago Cubs might not already be involved in that sweepstakes as a Snell mystery team.
The Cubs finally got off the couch and made a splash by signing Japanese veteran Shota Imanaga and still have several other irons in the fire as they look to re-sign Cody Bellinger, replace him with potentially Rhys Hoskins, Matt Chapman or otherwise if they're unable to re-sign him, and so on. But there have also been reports that the team could also still be looking to sign one or more other stars, particularly looking for an ace at the top of the starting rotation.
Snell would make a ton of sense for that. The lefty would give them a bonafide ace to put ahead of Justin Steele and create an elite 1-2-3 in the rotation with that pair and Imanaga. It would set up the Cubs exponentially better to make a serious run as a contender and NL Central favorite.
The behind-closed-doors nature of Snell's free agency makes this a guessing game. But when you start to connect the dots, it seems as if the Cubs could be lurking to try and make another major move to elevate the club after its 83-win campaign that fell short of the postseason.