About Aroldis Chapman
Coming into the 2009 season, there were three pitchers in their early 20s that were singled out as having the talent to be MLB stars in the future: San Diego State’s Stephen Strasburg, Nippon Ham’s Yu Darvish, and HolguÃn’s Aroldis Chapman. Strasburg, as we all know, went number one overall, and Darvish has indicated no real desire to move to the MLB, but Chapman, who defected months ago while Cuba was playing in Rotterdam, has declared residency in Andorra and is eligible to sign as a free agent any time now.
Last weekend, Larry Stone profiled Chapman for the Times, alluding to the M’s interest and listing them as one of the teams in attendance when he threw a bullpen session in Madrid. Most of it is the standard fare; the M’s are players because they have money and Chapman has pitched against Ichiro in the WBC and knows about Felix, for whatever that’s worth. His agent, relative unknown Edwin Mejia, has thrown out the familiar line of his guy being the type of player that “comes across every 40 or 50 yearsâ€, and word is that Chapman is going to want $60m on the market, nearly double what Jose Contreras got from the Yankees years ago. So, is he worth it?
There are a few videos of Chapman pitching in online, from the ‘07 World Cup, to ’09 WBC preliminaries, to his WBC stint earlier in the year. The’07 video shows why it would be easy to get excited about him. He’s not the archetypal pitcher, he’s long-limbed and tends to throw from a high three-quarters slot like he’s slinging the ball to the plate, but the ball jumps out of his hands, looking much faster than the low-90s it was being clocked at, and has tremendous lateral movement. The follow-through is also workable, in that he doesn’t fall over, despite taking a few steps forward on some landings, and he manages to keep his eyes on the glove as he’s pitching. The curve, his second best pitch, was a low-70s offering, nothing eye-popping in terms of vertical break, but an effective pitch and one he seemed comfortable with. He’d only bust out the slider every now and then, which would come in about five to ten MPH faster and functioned as a third pitch.
The ’09 videos are a bit more revealing, being slightly more than the standard highlight reel. All his pitches seem to have gained a few MPH and he’s now throwing in the mid-90s with his fastball on a regular basis. This is out of line with his hype of hitting 102 on the radar gun. He can reach back for triple-digits, and I saw him do it, but this was not a regular occurrence. He seemed to have additional confidence with his slider and was more readily throwing it. The talent is all there, and he seems to be progressing, and those cover enough positives to warrant interest.
The negatives? Chapman is fundamentally a thrower. One would gather as much given that he ranked near the top in walks and wild pitches, in addition to strikeouts, during his tenure with HolguÃn. The same came out in the WBC. What I saw was his showing against Australia (going against former Mariner Travis Blackley), not the Japan game in which he ran into trouble. Even so, there were flaws that would be exposed elsewhere. His delivery has gone even higher over the past couple of years, but it’s as inconsistent as it was before. His tempo and his release points are both uneven. When he gets more over the top, he loses his fastball command. It’s difficult to say why he’d even be throwing there either, as his curves were best around three-quarters. So, the delivery, while not setting off injury warnings, is going to need ironing out in order for him to be in any way efficient.
As a result, he was giving the catcher a workout and probably hit his spots less than half the time. When he was missing, it tended to be up in the zone. Thus, the majority of his outs seem to come in the air. The other thing is that his fastball, when moving, tends to dart into the right-handed batter’s box and down. If he’s capable of pitching in to left-handers, I didn’t see him do it much, not that he really needed to. Chapman seems to live and die by his fastball command. Even with the tight, but unspectacular curve, the fastball was his out pitch, and more Ks came on that than any other.
We’re due to see the bidding war start any time now, with the usual competitors in the Yankees, Red Sox, and Angels. Chapman may get a huge paycheck, but realistically, you’re looking at a guy who isn’t going to be MLB-ready from the get-go. I’d put him as a year or so split between double and triple-A at least, just to get the mechanics in order. After that, you’re still hoping that the breaking pitches manage to develop a little more. They have so far, and are fine for how he uses them, but I wouldn’t call them plus pitches, or signature weapons (that would still be the fastball). If the bidding starts to get out of hand, and it might, I think the M’s would be better served going after Japanese prep left-hander Yusei Kikuchi, who will be meeting with teams next week in advance of the Oct. 29th NPB draft, and maybe adding Taiwanese right-hander Chih-lung Huang, who is also mulling over the idea of jumping the pond. You could probably pick up both and then some for less than it’s going to take to get Chapman alone.
Thank you Jay. These are the kind of articles that help make dreary Octobers pass a little more quickly.
Will we be seeing similar write-ups for Kikuchi and Huang ar some point? Or is the lack of any comparable footage going to be an issue in that regard?
At any rate, keep up the great work!
I much prefer grabbing players like Kikuchi and Huang who are in relatively untapped and, in my opinion, undervalued markets rather than going after Chapman, who will almost certainly be overpayed.
Chapman feels like a landmine to me. Also, interesting that they mention Jose Contreras as we have to be concerned about how old he really is, don’t we?
Wow, this is the sort of post that makes this blog incomparable. Where else would you find this sort of content for free?
Whoo! There’s mention of Kikuchi here!
Given that we’re trying to get wins on the cheap, it’ll be hard to justify going out to bid on Chapman, even if we were to gloss over the potential mechanics issues.
The same may be said for Kikuchi, who has stated for a while that he would like to go to the states and play. From what I saw of him in the spring and summer Koshien tournaments, he’s certainly matured. Back in the spring he was more of a fireballer who just blew the ball by the hitters at 90 mph. By the time the scouts saw him again in the summer he was throwing a fair amount of breaking pitches, perhaps as a way to show that he has the ability to throw a 2nd or 3rd pitch to be a starter.
He certainly won’t come as expensive. By comparison, Tanaka Masahiro (the runner-up in the 2006 Koshien tournament and #1 overall pick – Saitou Yuuki went to university) earned $150k in his first year (although he certainly earned more in endorsements being the face of the franchise). For more info on Kikuchi, check NPB Tracker, Yakyu Baka, and videos of him on YouTube.
I’m really hoping we land Kikuchi; Chapman certainly has potential, but he seems like too much of a roll of the dice for the amount of money he’s going to cost.
There was a bit of a Kikuchi post a while back, but I’ll see what I can come up with over the weekend. It would be timely to have something a little more in-depth on him once he starts talking to the MLB teams. Gut says the Red Sox have better odds than we do though.
Huang, I might get to as well, but he’s not on the same level as the other two. He’ll likely be in the same boat as Choi and Kim. If he signs, I’ll tell you what I know. If not, it isn’t an extraordinary loss, though it’s worth mentioning the Rangers are also competing for his services.
As to Chapman’s age, there’s been some background rumors that he might actually be twenty-six, but most seem to believe he is what he says he is.
When I read the Stone piece I thought…… Here comes Sid Finch!
His agent, relative unknown Edwin Mejia, has thrown out the familiar line of his guy being the type of player that “comes across every 40 or 50 yearsâ€, and word is that Chapman is going to want $60m on the market, nearly double what Jose Contreras got from the Yankees years ago. So, is he worth it?
Heh. I wonder why he didn’t sign with Scott Boras. He could be asking for $160 million with Boras touting him as a talent that comes across every 140 or 140 years.
Ive heard that the Sox are not interested in Kikuchi!
How far out would this kid be if he did come to the states anyway? It seems like somewhat of a wash if we didnt even see him till 2012 or later, all it would be is bolster to our farm system and no real help to our team in the immediate future! If indeed he is as raw as what Ive seen!
I just want us to have a pitcher with a name as cutesy as “Kikuchi”.
If we could find a Korean baller called “Koo” they could make a delightfully twee double act.
This is Mejia’s big break, as I understand it. It was a thing where a friend of his was in contact and he happened to be in the right place at the right time.
That’s new. The Sox are the first of four teams he’s scheduled to hold talks with on Monday.
Pricetag aside, the comparison is like drafting a college player to a prep one. Kikuchi would take three years at the very least to get up to where you start thinking about him with the big club, and likely longer than that. People are going to come in knowing that, and that’s going to drive the price tag down.
Chapman, on the other hand, is likely to be paid like he’s major league ready, when he’s going to take a year or two to get there. He’s a great arm, but right now, that’s all he is. His reputation got blown out of proportion by his comparisons to Strasburg and Darvish, both of whom have better command and better repertoires. At Contreras prices, Chapman could be a steal (Contreras, at his own price, wasn’t bad except for the second year). I’d consider him up to $40m. As it gets toward $50m and beyond, I’m less and less interested.
It’s just additional evidence of the inequities of the draft vs. FA system that Chapman is going to get a contract three to four times the size of Strasburg.
Is anybody certain he’s in his early 20s? Given the history of Cuban pitchers and birth certificates, I would only be convinced he actually was in his early 20s if he was trying to compete in the Little League World Series.
Alas, that’s on Bavasi: he traded Shin Soo Choo.
Also a bummer Kikuchi is a pitcher and likely will end up as in the AL, where he won’t bat. Would be awesome for him to come to the plate to the strains of “I Am the Walrus” (koo koo ki choo…)
“We also have a Bronx Little Leaguer.”
“How old is he?”
“Once?”
“Once.”
So Larry Stone reports that we’re into him and want to meet with him. Meanwhile, he’s throwing bullpens at Fenway and being hosted by the Yanks for game six of the ALCS. He’s also now being touted as a left-handed Strasburg, even though he doesn’t have the consistent velocity or anywhere near the command.