The Los Angeles Dodgers have won back-to-back World Series, and the fatigue from October could delay Blake Snell’s start to the season.
In an interview with the California Post, Snell noted his arm was tired. He and his team have decided to “slow-play” his winter throwing program, according to Jack Harris.
“Thus, Snell and the team decided to have the 33-year-old slow-play his winter throwing program this offseason,” wrote Harris. “The plan, Snell said, is to still be ready for Opening Day in late March. But at this point, that is not seen as a certainty within the organization.”
Snell noted that being 100% is more important than simply being out there for opening day, per Harris. Snell pitched 61 1/3 innings in the regular season, making just 11 starts after dealing with an injury. He threw 34 innings in the postseason.
Snell is a two-time Cy Young Award winner and two-time ERA champion, but he has made just 31 starts in the last two seasons. He came through in October for the Dodgers, but they would like to have him healthy for as long as possible. Snell showed the Dodgers exactly what type of force he can be during Game 1 of the National League Championship Series.
He went eight innings, allowing just one hit, striking out 10 and giving up no runs. The Dodgers have depth to cover innings if Snell misses some time to start the year. However, when he is ready to go, the Dodgers will be getting an elite arm back.
Yankees’ new bullpen arm Angel Chivilli is a stick of dynamite
I’m going to be honest with you: when I saw the notification that the New York Yankees traded first base prospect T.J. Rumfield to the Rockies for Angel Chivilli, my first instinct was to check if my phone was bugging out.
On the surface, swapping a decent bat for a reliever with a 7.06 ERA and a 1.69 WHIP feels like Brian Cashman lost a bet. But after diving into the metrics, I’m changing my tune. This is exactly the kind of “dumpster dive” that pitching coach Matt Blake turns into gold, and I think they just stole a high-octane weapon for a prospect who had no path to the majors.
The Yankees clearly saw one thing when they scouted Chivilli: elite, unteachable velocity. The 23-year-old averages 97.1 mph on his heater, sitting in the 88th percentile for Fastball Velocity. In a world where velocity is king, you take a chance on that arm talent every single time, especially when the cost is a blocked minor league first baseman.
Credit: Christopher Hanewinckel-Imagn Images
The Fastball Is a Liability, but the Secondaries Are Nuclear
Here is why the Rockies failed and why the Yankees might succeed: Chivilli throws his worst pitch way too often. In 2025, he relied on his four-seam fastball 45.9% of the time, and hitters absolutely feasted on it to the tune of a .366 average and a .585 slugging percentage. It’s straight, it’s loud, and despite the velocity, it gets crushed.
But look at what happens when he spins the ball. His secondary stuff is downright filthy. His changeup generated a massive 42.6% Whiff Rate while holding batters to a .225 average. His slider was even more ridiculous, boasting a 45.5% Whiff Rate.
We are talking about a guy with two pitches that miss bats at an elite clip, yet he spent nearly half his time throwing a fastball that gets hammered. That is a usage problem, not a talent problem.
The Matt Blake Blueprint: Pitch Backwards
The fix here seems almost too obvious. The Yankees rank in the 80th percentile for Whiff Rate as a staff because they emphasize “stuff” over “establishing the fastball.” I expect Blake to completely flip Chivilli’s script. If he drops the fastball usage to 30% and leans into that changeup-slider combination—which, by the way, also helped him land in the 84th percentile for Ground Ball Rate—he becomes a different pitcher overnight.
Chivilli is currently a Ferrari engine inside a beat-up Honda Civic. The raw power is there, the whiffs are there, but the chassis is rattling apart because he doesn’t know how to drive it. Rumfield was a safe, low-ceiling asset. Chivilli is a high-risk stick of dynamite. I’ll take the dynamite.