Aroldis Chapman Reportedly Defects
Heading up to the draft, one of the main topics of conversation was how much Stephen Strasburg was worth, and how much he’d eventually sign for. Rumors of a $50 million bonus demand were floated, while the consensus seemed to be that he’ll sign for $15 to $20 million, because he lacks the leverage to negotiate with teams besides the Washington Nationals. The big “what if” question was how much a prospect like Strasburg would get if he was a free agent.
We might find out sooner than later, because Aroldis Chapman has reportedly defected from Cuba. R.J. wrote about his WBC start here, where Chapman showed off a legitimate power fastball from the left side. In their scouting report of the top 10 WBC prospects, Baseball America got the following quote from a scout:
“If you are looking for more than that in a pitcher, you’ll be searching your whole life,” an AL scout said. “He was so much fun to watch. If he’s 21 like he’s listed, the sky’s the limit. You’ve got honestly just one or two tweaks that could be made but he could go straight to the top of a big league rotation.”
Unlike with Strasburg, or even Japanese sensation Yu Darvish, Chapman has to be evaluated on his physical tools rather than his performance, but those tools are plenty exciting. It isn’t every day that a 21-year-old LHP with a mid-90s fastball becomes available for all 30 teams to bid on.
Let’s just hope, for the good of baseball, that he doesn’t end up with the Red Sox or Yankees.
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“Let’s just hope, for the good of baseball, that he doesn’t end up with the Red Sox or Yankees. ”
Hear hear.
If he’s really major league ready, I could very well imagine the Mets and Phillies getting into a bidding war over him as well, given their needs and rivalry.
It was my understanding that the Mets have very little payroll flexibility.
Entering the season, the Phillies were said to have between 2 and 5 million available for the right player. My guess is that number has gone up some based on need (especially if the brass is counting on some playoff revenue to offset the high payroll), but it’s very unclear how effective Chapman would be if thrown into a rotation this season so it might not be the “win-now” type addition they’re looking to make.
The Mets finances are a deep and murky bog, made more so by that Madoff guy. The Mets have been talking like they would happily take a player in a trade if taking on payroll was the main concern, which makes me think they have more money then they’re letting on. ::shrug:: From my observation, the Mets’ Front Office loves to lower expectations by downplaying their financial capabilities.
Of course how ready Chapman is for the Show is a big factor here.
I don’t think there’s tons of money to be spent out there. The Yankees are haggling with the Pirates over a few hundred thousand dollars. Wilpon looks maxed out with the Mets. Red Sox have Jason Bay to worry about to sign in the offseason.
Here’s my longshot play if they want to make a move for him: Texas Rangers. Hicks has money and their payroll is rather low historically and they have their best shot at a pennant in years.
Except that Hicks doesn’t actually have money.
http://insidecorner.dmagazine.com/index.php/2009/07/02/texas-rangers-go-silent-over-chatter-mlb-has-loaned-team-money/
Won’t this guy have to spend a year waiting to be eligible? By that time TX will likely have a new owner and we have no idea who that will be or what their stance on signing a guy like this would be.
I’m going to predict the Indians, White Sox, Rangers, Mariners, Brewers, Reds, Rockies, or D’Backs.
7 teams doesn’t make me very prescient though, so I’d guess Indians, ChiSox, or Mariners.
remember when jose contreras had the best stuff on the western hemisphere and the yankees and sox bled themselves dry bidding for him?
Jose Contreras still has nasty stuff.
Remember when we compared guys just because they’re from the same country.
My point is that because we don’t see much of the cuban players, and because there’s the certain aura about cuban baseball players, just like cigars, they become overrated. Contreras was seen as a certain ace. The yanks and sox spent a ton of money on him based on this certainty. But he was never the ace. It’s not that they’re from the same country. The same hype was said about Dice-K. He was supposed to be the best baseball player ever from Japan by far. He is not.
“Let’s just hope, for the good of baseball, that he doesn’t end up with the Red Sox or Yankees. ”
Us Yankees fans (and presumably Red Sox fans too) take issue with that kind sir!
Us non-Yankees/Red Sox fans take issue with your existence kind sir!
With sentiments like that you can kindly return your revenue sharing money.
Seriously. For the good of baseball… yeah, ok. Because it’s just TERRIBLE for baseball to have large-market teams with massive fan bases acquire exciting/talented players.
For the good of people who live & die by the Pirates or Royals, ok, I hear ya.
And hey, Dave’s a Mariners fan. The Mariners have some moolah. They could sign this guy if they wanted.
Isn’t it generally good for baseball when Boston and NY have great teams? If recent history is any judge, I’d say yes.
It’s funny to me how Yankees fans and Red Sox fans are so oblivious to why the 28 other fanbases aren’t particularly fond of them. Rob uses the Royals and Pirates as his examples while failing to realize that if a Chicago, LA, or Bay Area team (in other words, non-NYY/BOS large market team) acquired them, nobody but that teams rival fans would be upset…
“Let’s just hope, for the good of baseball, that he doesn’t end up with the Red Sox or Yankees.”
Dave says it best.
I’m pretty confident that most Yankees/Sox fans know why everyone hates them. The logical question is why should we care?
Eh, it’s not so much that I hate the fans, more the organizational philsophy of trying to win by outspending everyone. Comments like Rob’s and Trieu’s make it sound like they don’t know why Dave made the statement he did, and that’s what I was responding to.
After I posed I actually did some research to be informed though, and came to the conclusion that there’s no real reason to take exception to what they do anymore. A few years ago they certainly outspent everyone else by a lot (except, of course, NYY), but that’s no longer true. It’s back to being just the Yankees trying to ruin baseball. :)
“exception to what they do anymore”
They being the Red Sox.
I’m having trouble seeing how the Yankees can possibly affect teams like the Marlins or Pirates.
Hell, they help those teams immensely. Ask any owner in the game, and 100% of them would rather have the Yankees exist than not (well, except John Henry of course, heh).
The fans, well. To the big-spending teams’ fans their anger is funny and misplaced. Their poor, poor billionaire owners could invest in the team if they wanted to, but they don’t want to take the risk. Hey, that’s okay. It’s their investment after all. The fact is, though, that they have a million times more affect on your teams than the Yankees or Red Sox. The owners are more than likely laughing all the way to the bank while their misguided fans rant and rave against the big, bad Yankees signing a player their team had no shot at getting anyway, due mostly to their owner deciding not to invest in the team!
So yes, we know why fans hate the Yankees. Hell, they always have and always will. Subconcious jealousy, most likely. Nothing the Yankees can do about it except continue raking in the dough with their amazingly successful business model, and nothing Yankee fans can do but continue to enjoy their always-exciting team. And laugh at fans’ misguided anger and moralistic “For the good of the game!” rants. It’s always funny.
Except for the fact that baseball’s territorial rights agreements (which all the teams have to agree to) necessarily create a gap in revenue for the teams. New York (and LA, as well as other large markets) realistically can support several more teams then they currently do, but this is simply not possible due to the territorial rights.
What this creates is a marketplace where risk taking for the yankees (as well as other large market teams) is relatively non-existent due to the guaranteed return for the ridiculously large fanbase, whereas the kansas city’s of the world have a much larger risk with awarding big contracts to players (with lots of money committed and no increase in attendance, the loss is quite huge). So these poor billionare owners are much less willing to invest in the team because the return is lower and the risk is higher.
So you have a system in place which necessarily creates a unequal playing field that is slanted towards large markets.
So the reaosn we hate yankees/red sox fans is because you have a system that completely privileges your team to make/spend more money and there is nothing that is going to be done to change it and then act like the only reason why your team spends money is because you have generous owners.
This.
Well said.
I disagree. I don’t think you can settle an arbitrary number of teams in a city as the population permits. Even without territorial rights, I can’t really see a third team succeeding in New York or a fourth in SoCal. People are already psychologically invested in their teams. Sure the Mets have succeeded in NY, but that had a lot to do with former Dodgers and Giants fans who weren’t going to root for the Yankees in a million years.
I also really don’t have a problem with a system that makes a team with several the fans of anyone else be more likely to win it all. Especially when it’s not a sure thing by a long shot, ever, and especially when some good small market teams can’t even fill the stands*
* I’m staring at you Tampa Bay
Am I the only one that thinks Dave is just being facetious with his “for the good of the game” comment? Methinks that Yankee and Sox fans aren’t quite as thick-skinned as they think they are.
If the Yankees get this guy I bet you a million dollars he’ll be the next Pavano/Contreras/Vasquez/Brown and if the Red Sox get him, he’ll be an ace-level starter.
Anyways back to the conversation at hand about Chapman, I as a Cuban American and a fan of the evil big markt Red Sox hope this guy ends up landing in Portland. He has incredible stuff but from what I have read and seen of him (extremely sss and an untrained eye) he is far from being polished enough to be successful in the Bigs out of the gate. I really do believe that Boston is one of the few teams if not the only team in the position to give the kid a boat load of money and then stash him in the minors for a few years as he figures out how to get professional baseball players out. 5 -25 or 6-30 I hope, though I may be wildly optimistic and naive.
Chapman was 11-4 with a 4.03 ERA in the Cuban League. He did strike out 130 in 118 innings, but opposing batter still hit .252 against him, and he walked 62 batters. Given his age he’s certainly a good prospect, but I don’t believe this stuff about him being ready to step into a major league rotation as an ace pitcher.
Why do the Sox get thrown into the same sentence as that Yankees? Yes, they’re a big market and the Yankees’ biggest rival, yet they’re not even #2 in payroll anymore. They now sit at #4 with $122 million behind the Yankees, Mets, and Cubs and are one of 9 teams with a payroll over $100 million (Tigers, Angels, Phillies, Astros, and Dodgers). Don’t claim that the only reason the Sox win is because of outspending people – yes it helps, but it’s not everything.
The red sox are the only team in baseball to win a WS with a payroll of 100m+
maybe before stating that, level the playing field by converting all winning payrolls into equivalent USD for today, then see where everything falls out.