Rays: Top Six Slapdicks in Sports History

Rays’ 2018 Cy Young Winner, Blake Snell had some interesting comments in his live-streamed reaction to the Tommy Pham Trade. He has inspired us at Rays Colored Glasses to created a sort of Slapdick Hall of Fame.

Blake Snell was live streaming a video game session on Twitch when news of the Tommy Pham trade broke. Snell provided fans with a candid look into how players really feel about such trades. Had he not have been on the live stream, he would have been able to make a more measured response, perhaps with some coaching from someone within the Rays’ organization.

It probably would have been something along the lines of “Tommy was a great leader and a great player, but we are getting two quality players in return and I look forward to winning a lot of ballgames with Hunter Renfroe and eventually, Xavier Edwards.”

Instead, he grabbed his head in dejection, and called the Padres #5 overall prospect – a 19-year-old – a “slapdick prospect.”

How what a wonderful world we live in. I love Blake’s candor and to his credit, he walked the statement back afterward. I think we can all understand how he felt, because we all thought the same thing.

Here is a video of Snell’s response, which has since been deleted from Twitch, but you know everything lives in perpetuity on the internet.

Heads up: video contains a very mild curse word you occasionally hear in a Disney Movie, but just thought you should know. 

"“We gave Pham up for Renfroe and a damn slapdick prospect?”"

He would go on to clarify how mean he had just been to MLB.com’s #77 overall prospect.

"“I’m not trying to belittle a minor leaguer. It’s just super-rude toward that guy. That kid didn’t deserve me calling him a slapdick, let’s be honest … Tommy’s the man, bro. It’s just hella stupid.”"

(h/t Yahoo Sports)

If you are looking for an analysis of the Rays’ trade, you can find that here.

This is not about analyzing the trade. We are going to take a break from looking at numbers and take a look at the 10 greatest slapdicks in sports history, inspired by Rays’ pitcher, Blake Snell.