Tag Archives: Aroldis Chapman

Weekly Hit Ground Ball: the Chapman conundrum

To start or not to start, that was the question being pondered by Aroldis Chapman and the Cincinnati Reds.

The Cuban pitcher came into Spring Training preparing to be moved into a starting pitching role, just as he did a year ago.

As in 2012, that decision has been reversed and Chapman will once ago serve up his flame-throwing act in the ninth inning of games, rather than taking a spot in the Reds’ starting rotation.

The decision, announced on Friday, was not a surprise as Chapman had revealed a week earlier that his preference was to continue as the team’s closer.

The Reds stated in response that a decision would be made in the best interests of the team, not solely determined by the player, and that was emphasised again by General Manager Walt Jocketty when he confirmed Chapman’s role for the season ahead. However once the pitcher was sure enough that he was prepared to state his preference publicly, it became difficult for the Reds to do anything else.

Whilst no team wants to be seen to bow to the whims of an individual player, it isn’t a sign of weakness to take their views into account. Manager Dusty Baker stated “you want a guy at a comfort level” and although that applies to some extent to every player, a good manager will know which players are particularly sensitive to this.

It’s common across all team sports. Kevin Pieterson has been criticised in some quarters over the years for preferring to bat at 4 rather than 3 for England in Test cricket, but he’s a mercurial talent, capable of winning a game virtually single-handed when at his best. If batting at 4 is where he’s happiest, for whatever reason, it’s counter-productive to cloud his thinking by putting him in a different spot. What’s ‘best for the team’ is to get the best out of your best players.

If Chapman really wasn’t convinced about starting – maybe, away from what he would admit publicly, he doesn’t have confidence in his secondary pitches, for example – then forcing him into it wouldn’t help anyone, other than the Reds’ opponents.

The mystery with this argument – if true – is that this is the second time in two years that the Reds have pushed ahead with the plan to convert Chapman into a starter. They aborted the idea last year predominantly because Ryan Madson, who they had brought in to become their new closer, suffered a season-ending injury before throwing a pitch for the team.  They signed Jonathan Broxton to a three-year/$21m contract this winter, once again as a clear intent to fill the closer role with another pitcher.

It doesn’t immediately make much sense to act in this way unless Cincinnati were confident that Chapman was fully on board with the plan. Deciding to keep him as the closer because he’s comfortable in that role is justifiable, but coming to that conclusion little more than a week before the new season begins is strange to say the least.

Cincinnati have been criticised for their decision because there’s a convincing argument that a good starting pitcher, throwing 200 innings, is more valuable to a team than a closer pitching only 70. Many applauded the Reds’ initial plan to convert Chapman into a starter precisely for this reason and therefore the way they have backtracked leaves them – and the perception is that it’s mainly Baker that wanted to keep him as the closer – open to the claim that they are failing to appreciate the worth of a starter compared to a closer.

That claim may be completely off-base. It could be the worth of a starting pitcher that made the Reds try to coax Chapman into letting go of his misgivings once again. In that scenario, the signing of Broxton can be seen as the Reds trying to focus Chapman’s attention on becoming a starter and perhaps more could have been done to reinforce the message.

As with every roster decision, ultimately it will be judged by how the team’s season turns out.

Cincinnati had the most stable starting rotation in the Majors last season. Johnny Cueto, Mat Latos, Homer Bailey, Bronson Arroyo and Mike Leake together started all but one of the Reds’ 162 regular season games, the other outing being a Major League debut for 27-year old Todd Redmond in the second game of a day-night doubleheader on 18 August.

All five of the main pitchers are with the Reds again this season – it was presumed that Leake would be the man to make way for Chapman – and they should form a quality rotation again. With Chapman and Broxton at the sharp-end of the bullpen, the Reds will have a strong core to their pitching staff.

Keeping Chapman as the closer may not be the optimum strategy, but the Reds are still in a good position heading into the season and if they have the lead in a deciding World Series game, Reds fans will be glad to be able to call on their Cuban Missile.

Weekly Hit Ground Ball: Hope in Spring

‘Hope springs eternal’, but in baseball spring is an eternal source of hope.

The sun beats down onto the backs of returning ballplayers in Arizona and Florida, some of the recipients driven by a winter of frustration, some emboldened by the confidence of success from the previous year.

It is the sense of renewal that makes spring such a glorious part of the baseball calendar. Everything starts again and that means anything is possible; however the past is always present in the mind and every player will have something to prove on the back of the 2012 performance.

Here are six players whose 2012 seasons, for differing reasons, will make following their fortunes in 2013 all the more intriguing.

Mike Trout (Los Angeles Angels)

When we witness a player excelling at a young age it is too tantalizing not to look ahead and wonder just how good he will become. Sportsmen often hit their peak in their late-twenties, so it is natural to see Mike Trout’s incredible performance as a 20 year-old in 2012 as a starting point for our expectations.

Yet how realistic would that be? Whilst experience and physical maturity could hone Trout’s remarkable talent even further, the level of competition in MLB must put a limit on how far he can improve.

It’s possible that Trout could have a long and successful career and never quite top 2012. If we use Baseball-Reference’s Wins Above Replacement (WAR) as our measure then Trout’s season (10.7 WAR) is the joint-17th highest in a single season since the end of World War Two. Of all the many thousands of individual player seasons from 1946 onwards, only 16 have been better judged by WAR.

Upon considering that staggering fact, no baseball fan can help but be fascinated by what Trout will serve up as an encore in 2013.

Roy Halladay (Philadelphia Phillies)

Whilst Trout was dazzling as a young star in the AL West, Halladay was struggling as a veteran star in the NL East.  2012 arguably was his worst full season since 2000.

A tough year as a 24 year old can be recovered from, as Halladay’s exceptional career since shows. Fighting back from a disappointing season when you are 36 is a much more difficult task. Halladay was clearly hampered by an injury to his right-shoulder and he has entered Spring Training with a revised training regime, adjusted pitching mechanics and a positive frame of mind.

Every player is in ‘the best shape of their life’ coming into Spring Training and it could be overly optimistic to consider 2012 as a mere bump in the road, but Halladay’s previous excellence means he deserves the benefit of the doubt. If the Phillies are to challenge the Washington Nationals and Atlanta Braves in the NL East, they need ‘Doc’ to return to somewhere close to his previous form.

Jemile Weeks (Oakland A’s)

What a difference a year makes. Twelve months ago, Weeks came into the A’s Spring Training camp all set to become the leading face of the club. His impressive rookie campaign in 2011 had earned him an extremely rare compliment: the A’s General Manager Billy Beane described him as the one ‘untouchable’ asset on the roster that he wouldn’t consider trading.

In Oakland’s home season-opener against the Seattle Mariners, Weeks led off the bottom of the first inning with a single and the A’s TV commentators were quick to state that they expected big things of the second baseman in the season ahead.

Instead, Weeks played so poorly that he was demoted to Triple-A on 21 August and he was relegated to cheer-leading duty as Oakland secured a surprising AL West division title.

Weeks was defiant at the time of his demotion, stating: “at the end of the day, I’m going to be a star in this game, man. You’ve got to have your ups and downs. It just makes the story so much sweeter when you come back. I don’t want to expand too much on it, but you’re looking at a star, period”.

If Weeks is to live up to his own billing, he needs to have a big bounceback season in 2013. That includes simply winning a starting job during Spring Training.

Tim Lincecum (San Francisco Giants)

In 2012, Lincecum played his part in helping the Giants to their second World Series title in three years. However, the two-time Cy Young Award winner’s role was to chip in with 4.2 innings of relief pitching during the Fall Classic having lost his place in the starting rotation after putting up a 5.37 ERA over 33 regular season starts.

Lincecum will be a free agent at the end of the coming season and if he is to earn a lucrative new contract he will need to show that his disappointing 2012, and the declining speed of his fastball, was just a blip.

He turned up to the Giants’ Spring Training camp with his trademark long hair cut short, either as a sign that he is smartening up his act or that he is trying a reverse-Samson approach to regain his powers.

Aroldis Chapman (Cincinnati Reds)

Lincecum was temporarily moved from starting to relief pitching for the 2012 playoffs and one of the biggest National League stories in Spring Training will be the Reds’ plan to take the opposite approach with their ‘Cuban missile’.

When Cincinnati won the race to Chapman’s signature in January 2010, their offer of a 6 year, $30.25m contract reflected the scouting reports that he could become a dominating starting pitcher. So far they have harnessed his blazing fastball/slider combination out of the bullpen to great effect and he took to the role of closer superbly last season, striking out a scarcely believable 122 batters in just 71.2 innings (15.3 K’s per 9 innings).

However, a quality starting pitcher that can give you 200 innings in a season, plus a potential dominant postseason start or two, is more valuable to a team than 70 innings as a closer and the Reds have decided now is the time to find out if Chapman has what it takes.

With Cincinnati all set to be in a tight NL Central battle with the St. Louis Cardinals, it will be interesting to see how much patience they have before deciding to move him back to the closer role.

Carl Crawford (Los Angeles Dodgers)

Here’s a question for you: will Crawford come into Spring Training this year happier than he did two years ago?

Back in 2011, he met his new Boston Red Sox teammates for the first time flush with a 7 year, $142m contract and full of excitement about what he hoped would be a successful new chapter in his career.  From the outside, everything was perfect, but there was a lingering doubt as to how Crawford would adapt to playing in the media hothouse of Boston compared to his days with the underdog Tampa Bay Rays.

The dream turned into a nightmare as a poor 2011 season was followed by an injury hit 2012. Crawford recently admitted to his feelings of desperation, stating: “I knew with the struggles I was having, it would never get better for me. I just didn’t see a light at the end of the tunnel. It puts you in kind of a depression stage. You just don’t see a way out”.

Thankfully for Crawford – and for the Red Sox – the dollar-dispensing Dodgers provided an unlikely way out with their summertime mega-trade. The outfielder is still rehabbing from elbow surgery and may not be ready for Opening Day, but 2013 will offer Crawford a chance to get his career back on track.

Pitching phenoms spring into action

You wait days for a ‘pitching phenom’ to make his debut and then two come along at once.  Aroldis Chapman wowed the Royals, scouts and speed guns yesterday; today it’s the turn of the Washington Nationals’ Stephen Strasburg.  The Nationals are playing the Detroit Tigers today, with first pitch set for 18.05 GMT.

In days of old, this would be smothered in politics: Chapman from Communist Cuba against a Star Spangled Strasburg.  There may still be a bit of that in the background, but for the majority of us it’s just pure baseball.

Chapman came on in relief of Bronson Arroyo yesterday evening, British time, after the Reds’ starter pitched two perfect innings.  That sequence was broken straight away as fellow Cuban Brayan Pena singled to lead off the third inning, although it didn’t seem to bother Chapman all that much.  He ended up pitching two scoreless innings, striking out three batters in the process.  The only live commentary on MLB.com was via the Royals’ radio crew, the Reds’ being conspicuous by their absence, but they did a great job of putting across the ‘event’. 

A small crowd of just over 2,000 meant that the loud ‘oohs and ahhs’ I had anticipated didn’t thunder over the airwaves, or the Internet in my case.  Still, the appeal of listening in to the game was not so much that it was a big moment in itself, but that it was the start of what could be a very promising career. The comments after the game, most lyrically described (as always) by Joe Posnanski, suggested that the “I remember listening to his Spring Training debut” tales will be broken out in years to come.

The same applies to Strasburg, although in his case MLB.TV subscribers will be able to say they “watched” his debut.  He’s scheduled to pitch two innings today and they are sure to be two of the most-watched innings of Spring Training.

The next chapter for Chapman

A Spring Training game between the Cincinnati Reds and the Kansas City Royals wouldn’t normally be a cause of great excitement; however today’s encounter should be different.  The Reds’ $30.5m Cuban import Aroldis Chapman is set to make his debut, pitching out of the bullpen at some point behind Bronson Arroyo. First pitch is set for 20.05 GMT.

I’ve had some bad luck when it comes to catching Chapman in the past, so don’t be surprised if ‘rain stops play’ for the second straight day in Arizona.

The game isn’t being covered by a TV network so it’s not available to watch on MLB.TV, but radio coverage will be provided on Gameday Audio at MLB.com.  Listening to the build-up, the excitement as he comes into the game, the oohs and aahs from the crowd and the vivid descriptions of his performance should be a lot of fun.  It’s not clear when Chapman will be called to the mound after Arroyo has got his work in.  Reds manager Dusty Baker has joked previously that “if we pitch him [Chapman] later, fans will stick around and drink more beer”, so we may be in for a wait.

Incidentally, there still doesn’t appear to be an obvious link to the 2010 Gameday Audio-only annual subscription. New customers can now sign up for $19.95 (£13.18) at this billing page.  Gameday Audio is included in the MLB.TV and MLB.TV Premium subscriptions.