Jan
10
Reds sign Aroldis Chapman for five years, $30M
ByWe finally have some confirmation. The man who originally broke the story – Yahoo’s Jeff Passan – has confirmed that the Reds have signed Cuban lefty Aroldis Chapman to a five year contract worth a total of $30M. That’s a lot of eggs for a mid-market team to put into one basket, so they must have a lot of faith in their talent evaluators.
The Yankees have been pretty much out of the Chapman sweepstakes, citing concerns about his asking price, makeup, and long-term role.
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the season is now a lost cause
I guess the Reds will win the AL East?
Only if they trade for Halladay and Adam Dunn.
Wow, I’m a little disappointed the Yankees didn’t land him if the report is true. But at this price tag, completely understandable.
Don’t worry Pop, if he is still pitching 6 years from now, it’ll be for the Yanks.
And we’ll know what he is at that point. But yeah, the fact that the twitter account was just created makes it sure seem sketchy.
Wow. True.
I didn’t even click on that.
http://twitter.com/AnswerDave/status/7599604878
Yeah, I’m not convined he’s signed yet.
I received two Tweets from Dave Brown from Big LEague Stew confirming that the tweet of Passan was accurate.
“Passan’s tweet is legit. @talkchibaseball”
“@talkchibaseball I don’t know who the team is yet, no. Just know that a source of Passan’s told him what tweet said.”
http://twitter.com/AnswerDave
Dave Brown of Yahoo!Sports says that is indeed Passan’s account.
Not surprised the Yanks passed, at that price. Plus, I think Cashman has realized developing pitchers requires the kind of patience that’s in short supply in the Bronx.
And now there’s an article. It says the Mets are one possibility.
I think some of the reports stated that the Yanks weren’t even really bothering to bid. I’m guessing they really didn’t want anything to do with a pitcher who has unpredictable control.
The Reds are a strange team. It seems like they built it out of unknowns and underachievers.
Sure they do. His name is Andrew Brackman. In a year, he will be a top prospect for the Yankees.
They kind of had to. Small market, small budget.
Some of their draft picks have been really bad, but I think the “underachievers” are just par for the course when you build your team around young players. They struggle, they need time to figure it out. In the Bronx, they’d be shipped to Scranton or traded, but with the Reds, they get to start.
Jay Bruce was disappointing last season, though he showed nice power. Homer Bailey finally seemed to figure it out. (He and Hughes were often compared, and I think the jury’s still out on which will be better.) Joey Votto has been terrific – hardly an underachiever.
FWIW, the Reds beat writer is reporting:
If that’s true, it won’t have a major payroll impact this season.
Cashman’s comments on pitching recently have indicated the opposite. He’s said the cost of pitchers gives him a headache so if anything his desire to develop quality pitching is greater than to constantly hit the marker for pitchers.
In this case, it would be a lot of money and a lot of time to develop Chapman so from that perspective it makes sense for the Yanks to pass.
He indicated years ago that his plan was to grow his own pitching and trade for hitters, but I think what happened with Joba, IPK, and Hughes made him realize that there are pitfalls there. Other teams might take “rebuilding years” where youngsters get time to figure it out. Not the Yankees.
That’s $7 million more than the highest assumed offer on the table (Jays). Somebody’s convinced Chapman’s going to develop a league average slider or curve. Kinda hard to fathom that Chapman could now land a contract twice that signed by Strasburg.
Not really. Strasburg had to take the Nats offer or wait a year and hope someone else would be willing to top it by enough to justify waiting a year.
Chapman could freely negotiate with all 30 teams and play offers against each other. The more teams competing to sign you, the better your offers.
I think what he’s saying is that it’s still hard to believe he makes twice Strausberg. He understood the parameters for a deal, he (and I agree) just thinks it’s ridiculous that a player with many more questions is making twice the money. Just goes to show the ludicrous arguments that the owners take in regards to draft picks and their pay.
Looks like it’s the Cincinnati Reds.
From Passan:
“Non-stop Delta flight left FLL for Cincinnati at 9:20 this morning. Another source said $30 million deal is for five years.”
Didn’t think the Reds had it in them.
I’m sure they have non-stop flights to a lot of other cities too though..
Passan tweeted two minutes before that:
‘Narrowed it down: It’s an NL Central team. Cincinnati making more and more sense. Reds “going after him like crazy,” team source said.’
Cincy’s not really a connection hub. If things to through the midwest, it goes to Chicago first. It sounds like a final destination.
Hey I had my connection at Cincy going to California from CT!
/sss
The Cubbies?
I need to start reading. The Reds? Wow. Good for them.
Who knew the Reds had that much payroll flexibility. Those guys still arent close to competing. No Edison Volquez for 2010 pretty much leaves this squad without any impact starters.
They aren’t close to competing, but Chapman may not be close to being a big leaguer…yet.
There’s been some speculation that the Reds would be taking the money from their overseas program, and so this would not affect their payroll, at least for now.
The Reds did manage to void their international day signing of Wagner Matos, so the team has been active abroad recently.
Cardinals didn’t sign Mateo.
Well they saved 5m this year on re-doing Rolen’s deal. Ramon Hernandez took a 5m paycut, and Alex Gonzalez cost them 5 last year. So thats 15m, plus 24m from Arroyo/Harang coming off next year.
Homer could be good. There was a good article about him changing his delivery and being much more effective. Might have been Fangraphs?
Joe Frisaro of MLB.com is also hearing it’s the Reds.
The Reds are going to have a killer rotation if Chapman and a few of their other youngsters turn out to be the real deal.
I think the number for Chapman is nuts. That being said, if he is going to Cincinnati, this is a VICTORY for the YANKEES. If he does not cut it, it is not Yankee money that goes down the drain. Or if he turns out to be some Randy Johnson-type then he will not haunt the team like if he went to Anaheim, the Mets, Toronto or worse-case, Boston.
This off-season, what happened with the competition, turned out to be quite acceptable for Cashman and the Yankees. Not only is Chapman with the Reds, but Halliday and Bay are out of the division, Holliday is NOT in Baltimore or Boston, and the Angels look like a beaten team (Losing Lackey, Figgins and Guerrero). I concede the point that Seattle looks very tough with Lee and Hernandez, and Lackey will help Boston (But not like Halliday would have).
The Yankees are still the favorites to win it all.
When you lay it all out, it really has been a good offseason for the Yankees.
Seattle looks great defensively, but I still think they can’t hit worth a lick. Ichiro’s gonna have to steal a lot of bases.
Commissioner Selig has to look into this immediately. What’s with these big-market teams buying up all the talent? How are small market teams like the Red Sox supposed to compete?
No idea, man. It’s really hurting the game.
My sources have just told me that it is not the Giants or Diamondbacks.
Think of how much talent the Yankees could sign with $30 million in IFA. Not sure it’s a great allocation of resources for Cincy, but if it does pan out (a big if), that could be a really good cost-controlled rotation. Volquez, Cueto, Chapman, Bailey. Wow.
I don’t think people realize that Bailey won’t be 24 until May and have sort of given up on him.
about 15 Jesus Monteros if i remember his signing bonus correctly
more–Jesus’ bonus was only 1.6 in the end
Now the Reds will have two Rookie of the Year candidates!
At Chapman’s skill level, I doubt you’d see him for 2 years. All those suggestions that he may be up by the end of the year as a reliever when rosters expand seem highly optimistic, considering that he only has one pitch.
I’m happy he’s not going to be a Red Sox.
If he turns out to be good, maybe they’ll flip him for some sort of Melky, IPK, Ajax package.
/2009′d
Maybe the Rangers will trade Smoak for him.
/reversehistoryrepeatsitself’d?
NL central works for me, won’t ever see him. Also works for Chapman, better chance to succeed, though Havana to Cinci is quite the change.
Isn’t Havana to anywhere quite the change, though?
/Resists joke about poverty.
I would’ve gone the 1950′s car route.
Passan confirms it: it’s the Reds.
John Fay, the Reds beat writer, has been on one of those Gannett furloughs this week, but is back today. He says the deal could be for as long as 10 years.
Dunno if I buy that…
That would be very unintelligent. I doubt it’s true, though.
Well technically wouldn’t 10/$30 be better than 5/$30?
Not that I believe it for a second.
5 yrs sounds about right. The only way I see it being longer is if there is an opt out after 2 or 3 yrs.
[...] Aroldis Chapman has apparently signed with the Reds. [...]
Im not too disappointed. 30 million dollars over 5 years would equal an extra 6 million dollars/year to dump into the draft, international free agency, or Felix Hernandez in a couple years.
Maybe it’s just the Yankee fan in me, but if the (big market)Yankees had spent $20 million on Chapman they’d get destroyed for it, but the (small market) Reds give him $30 million and no one will blink an eye.
30 mill from cincy??? They are on crack. With a limited payroll they throw that much money at an unproven guy. Talk about financial disparity in the league, how can it be the yankees fault if other teams are stupid?
Agreed.
It’s 30 mil over 5 years, which makes a little more sense.
i guess theve been saving those nice checks they get from the yankees being over payroll tax
On the bright side, Chapman should feel right at home living in an economically depressed area.
IETC. Recession jokes FTW.
[...] and long-term role concerns had the Yanks out of the Aroldis Chapman sweepstakes, and he ended up getting big money from the Reds. Chien-Ming Wang, meanwhile, will throw off a mound in 6-8 weeks and has had 15 teams [...]