From what I’ve observed, a lot of people have been using Snell’s recent success as an excuse to decide he’s fixed. He isn’t. His command is still a big issue, and it’s very unlikely that he’s going to be able to fix that before next season – at the earliest. He’s not awful, but when you fall behind 3-1 or 3-0 on nearly every hitter, you’re going to have a lot of problems.
His fastball isn’t really the issue – the velocity is good, and although he could stand to bring it’s strike percentage up from where it was tonight (57.4%), it’s not his biggest issue. He probably isn’t going to have much success until he develops better command of it – right now I get the feeling he has no idea where it’s going – but his biggest problem is his inability to control his other pitches.
His slider seems to be fine – he’s throwing it for strikes, and he’s missing bats with it. It accounted for half of his 6 swinging strikes tonight. So no, his slider isn’t the issue – what appears to be hurting him is his change. He throws it a lot, mainly because it’s the closest thing he has to an out pitch against lefties, but he has no command of it. He threw 21 of them tonight against the A’s – 9 of them (42.8%) for strikes, and didn’t miss any bats. When you’re regularly throwing a pitch that you can’t hit the zone or miss bats with, that’s going to be a problem, which is why he’s going to need to do a lot of work on it this offseason.
So, in summary: Fewer walks, more sliders, fewer change ups (until he improves it), and less nibbling.
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I would say that I tend to agree with the idea that Snell gets behind hitters too often. If you compare who is now to his "breakout" 2007 season, he throws few too many first strike pitches.
I also initially disagreed with you about his lack of throwing his slider until i saw he only throws it 14% of the time. Compared to past seasons of 06-08 that were 26%, 37%, 32%.
Maybe it's lack of confidence in his pitches?
His fastball has never been very good. I tend to think because of lack on control and the same could be said about his change up. Should he be able to work out his mechanics with Rick Adair I think he would find his command and become a lights out pitcher with his awesome +slider.
He dosn't need more velocity or movement on his pitches just the ability to locate them better to setup his pitches. But thats just my personal opnion.
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