The New York Yankees made one more push to add two-time Cy Young Award winner Blake Snell to their rotation before the free agent agreed to a two-year, $62 million contract with the San Francisco Giants.
"The Yankees offered $150 million to Blake Snell last month but pulled their offer and declined to re-enter the sweepstakes on Sunday," USA Today's MLB insider Bob Nightengale stated.
Finally, it appears that Snell was determined to achieve the maximum possible average annual value (AAV) on his contract, with plans to retest the market in the near future.
Jon Heyman of the New York Post reports that his new contract has an opt-out clause.
The Yankees were linked to Snell for the entirety of the offseason, and rumors grew with an injury to their ace Gerrit Cole now plans to keep him off the field for several weeks.
Finally, with the Yankees' current payroll, any significant AAV for Snell would have resulted in an unsustainable tax burden.
"The Yankees and Snell's agent, Scott Boras, conducted renewed talks over the past few days, but they never got close to a deal after trying several avenues to try to blunt the 110 percent, fourth-tier tax the Yankees are confronting as a team above the final $297 million threshold," Heyman wrote in his report.
"Boras and the Yankees were trying to devise creative ways to lessen the tax, but ultimately he was going to be quite expensive for the Yankees since they are one of three teams over the fourth-tier tax, with no obvious way to cut salary,"