What to make of Ian Snell?

[sakata_catching]

Pirates' pitching has generally flourished under new pitching coach Joe Kerrigan, the glaring exception being Ian Snell, who, after posting a 2-8 record with some alarming peripherals (decreasing K rate, increasing BB, 4.57 FIP) in 15 starts, actually requested a demotion to AAA to escape, in his words, "all the negativity" in Pittsburgh.

Snell's line yesterday in his first AAA start vs. Toledo:

IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	7.0	2	1	0	1	17

It should be noted that 13 of his 17 Ks came in a row.

Yipes. I'm not sure what he's worth, but he's highly available. He's signed to an $8.6M contract through 2010.

[isestrex]

Snell is one of my "Fantasy Kryptonite" to borrow a phrase from Bill Simmons.

The guy has amazing potential but he's never kept it up for a consistent stretch. His best year was in 2007 when he went a good 4 months of consistency but that was as good as it got. One day he'll go out and strike out 11 batters, then he'll give up 5 runs in 2 innings in the next game.

Basically a D-Cab or Loewen...

[Anlbdz]

if we ate some of his salary, i bet we could throw a basic non prospect their way. I would be fine with that. The guy showed some potential and has just fallen off since. Kranitz has had some success showing our guys how to pitch it seems. Barring an arm injury....I think it would be an easy low risk opportunity. Who knows, but for a season or two he had it figured out...walk rates were decent, same with K rates. If we could get him on the cheap, you can never have enough pitching.