Left-hander Blake Snell, who pitched 21 scoreless innings to start the season, was promoted to Double-A on Sunday. (Photo Credit: Sun Photo/Jennifer Bruno)
Left-hander Blake Snell, who pitched 21 scoreless innings to start the season, won the Baseball America minor-league player of the year award. (Photo Credit: Sun Photo/Jennifer Bruno)

You are undoubtedly aware by now that LHP Blake Snell won the Baseball America minor-league player of the year award. In doing so, he became the fourth Ray to win the award, joining Rocco Baldelli, Delmon Young and Jeremy Hellickson.

Snell put together an incredible season, across three levels, where he led the minor leagues in ERA (1.41) and opponents batting average (.182), posted a ridiculous 31.3% K%, and ranked among the overall leaders with 15 wins (third) and 163 strikeouts (fourth). He becomes just the ninth pitcher in 35 years to claim the honor.

Matt Eddy (Baseball America) compared Snell to Detroit Tigers’ hurler Justin Verlander in a recent article, writing,

Through his first 22 appearances and 119 innings, Snell had allowed a mere 17 earned runs, which meant that he entered play on his Aug. 25 start with a 1.29 ERA that matched Justin Verlander for the lowest such mark by a minor league pitcher in nearly a quarter of a century. Verlander accomplished that feat in 2005, when he zoomed through high Class A Lakeland and Double-A Erie en route to his big league debut with the Tigers on July 4.

Snell, a 22-year-old Rays prospect, did not fall far on the minor league ERA leaderboard. He settled into second place with an ERA (1.410) that tied lefthander Jon Connolly, in his 2003 season at low Class A West Michigan, to three decimal places. Snell’s brush with history helped him earn recognition as the Minor League Player of the Year.

Here are the top 10 composite ERAs posted by minor league pitchers since 1993, the first year in which the BA Almanac takes note of overall minor league leaders. That distinction is important for players who play for multiple minor league clubs in one season, as Snell did in 2015, which he began at high Class A Charlotte before advancing to Double-A Montgomery and, finally, to Durham.

(Table Credit: Matt Eddy/Baseball America)
(Table Credit: Matt Eddy/Baseball America)

Eddy continued,

Note that Josh Beckett in 2001 was the only pitcher on this list, other than Snell, to win the Minor League POY award. Also note that every pitcher on the list at least reached the majors, save for the still-prospect-eligible Snell and Glenn Sparkman. (Yes, even Dilson Torres drew a big league paycheck, having logged 44 innings for the 1995 Royals.)

Incidentally, this top 10 ranking of ERAs also constitutes all the qualified pitchers to record an ERA of 1.60 or lower during the past 23 seasons.

That’s pretty good company for the hurler, who is the only pitcher to face a Triple-A batter in his record-challenging ERA season!

That’s not to say Snell is a finished product ― his overall 10.2% BB% is below par, although it improved from 13.4% when he was promoted to Double-A. But to be fair, he was able to collect a 7.6% BB% in nine starts with Durham. His control has shown improvement and it will be interesting to see the case he makes for himself in Spring Training. In the end, Snell could very well crack the roster next season, especially if ― as Marc Topkin (Tampa Bay Rays) recently said ― Tampa Bay deals from its surplus of rotation options this offseason.

 

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