Last night, Chapman drilled Bradley with a 103.3 MPH fastball. Nearly every sports media outlet chronicled how this was the fastest pitch in MLB this season, and that Bradley was tragically unlucky to take it on the elbow.

(Here’s a link to a gif of it because we can’t embed tweets for some reason.)

But the history of these two All-Stars goes deeper. In 7 career plate appearances against Chapman, Bradley is 2-3 with a walk and 3 HBP! On one hand, kudos to Bradley for reaching base 6 out of 7 times against perhaps the greatest lefty reliever of all time. On the other, that is NOT a sustainable way to reach base, let alone extend one’s career. Let’s examine these HBP a little further.

A (Very Painful) Trip Down Memory Lane

August 13, 2014: The first pitch Bradley ever saw from Chapman came up and in at 100.8 MPH. Bradley couldn’t get out of the way and got plunked. No, he didn’t; he got drilled. Plunked is what happens when a batter gets hit with a curveball or changeup. Chapman has never plunked anyone in his life. 2014 was Bradley’s first full season, and this was the first 100 MPH fastball he’d ever seen in the majors (and probably ever).

August 13, 2017: Three years to the day after the first HBP Chapman nailed him again, this time at 101.5 MPH on an 0-2 count. StatCast actually recorded the exit velocity at 51.7 MPH. That’s not the exit velocity off a wooden bat, that’s off bone and sinew! The ball traveled a distance of 43 feet. At the risk of being immodest, this is the single greatest application of StatCast in history.

May 8, 2018: 103.3 MPH, as shown above. This is the fastest velocity on a HBP ever recorded by StatCast, breaking the previous record of 102.7 from Chapman to Khris Davis on August 24, 2013. One would think after three near-assassinations, Bradley and Chapman might have words (or fists) to share with one another. Instead, Bradley simply takes his base, and Chapman walks toward him presumably to apologize or check that he’s OK. We don’t often get to congratulate ballplayers for showing maturity. Well done, gentlemen.

Bradley’s Terrible HBP Misfortune

This was not supposed to happen. Neither Bradley nor Chapman are prone to HBP (thank goodness). Bradley has faced 8,216 pitches in his MLB career and he’s only been hit by 34 of them (0.41%). Chapman is one of the most dangerous pitchers on the planet simply because of his blistering fastball, but he’s only hit 21 batters with 7,633 pitches (0.28%). Averaging the two, a pitch thrown from Chapman to Bradley should result in a HBP only 0.35% of the time or once every 286 pitches. In actuality, 3 out of 23 pitches have left a bruise.

However, not every pitch by Chapman reaches triple digits. He throws a lot of sliders and plenty of fastballs that only reach the high 90s. Roughly 1/3 of Chapman’s pitches cross the 100 MPH threshold (35.6%), so the chances of Bradley getting hit with a 100 MPH Chapman fastball are only 0.12%. Mathematically, it should happen once every 805 pitches, but in real life, it’s been once every 8!

Other pitchers have thrown 100 MPH, but last night’s 103 MPH high cheese was truly rare even for Chapman. He’s only thrown 262 pitches in his career at that speed or higher, which is 3.4% of all his pitches. Before last night, no one had ever been hit by a 103 MPH pitch. Based on the HBP rates of both Chapman and Bradley, it should happen once every 8,347 pitches from the former to the latter. Unfortunately for Bradley, it happened on just the 23rd.

Bradley has paid his dues against the Cuban Missile. The odds of getting struck 3 times in just 23 pitches by the hardest thrower in baseball history are unbelievably long. It’s highly unlikely to happen ever again. However, next time he faces Chapman he should consider standing a few inches further back in the batter’s box.

Photo Credit: Adam Hunger-USA TODAY Sports

What happened to Chapman this season? Relief pitcher performance has more variance than other positions due to very small sample sizes. In other words, sometimes relief pitchers just get unlucky. However, that was not the case with Chapman in 2017. In the graphs below, I’ve aggregated Chapman’s performance by month, combining the injury-shortened May and June:

Chapman had two very bad months – the May/June period and August. During the May/June period, his strikeout rate remained excellent. However, it dipped significantly after coming back from injury in July, and really took a dive in August. After Joe Girardi benched him in August, Chapman recovered both in strikeout rate and ERA; he didn’t allow a single earned run in September.

But what role did batted ball luck play in all of this? And what about Chapman’s fastball velocity? For these questions, we turn to Statcast’s xwOBA and velocity leaderboards:

Well that’s cool: Aroldis Chapman was remarkably consistent in terms of xwOBA throughout the year, other than August. His batted ball luck was very unlucky in May and June, and mildly unlucky in July. His fastball velocity was stable before shooting up in September. Chapman was only legitimately bad in August, but he recovered in September to have his best month of the season.

The data tell us a clear story: we can all exhale. Aroldis Chapman is probably going to be an elite closer next season. The Yankees didn’t buy damaged goods; the good just got temporarily bruised in August. Aroldis Chapman is still a top-5 closer in baseball, 3.22 ERA or not.

Aroldis Chapman threw an early contender for Pitching GIF of the First Half with this 90mph Slider to Brad Miller yesterday pic.twitter.com/OGFyVJEWmI

— Pitcher List (@ThePitcherList) April 5, 2017

Two things about this particular pitch: (1) As silly as Chapman made Miller look, that’s certainly much better than any of us would do in that spot; and (2) sliders from Chapman like that one will be a major factor in his continued success in the coming years.

Obviously, Chapman (who turned 29 in February) has made his living off his other-worldly fastball while mixing in his slider and changeup to keep hitters off balance. His secondary offerings—even if they are not executed perfectly—can make hitters look foolish since they typically are gearing up for 100 mph+.

However, the left-hander’s slider has been an elite pitch in its own right over his career. From 2010–16, opposing batters hit just .100 (24-239) with a .059 ISO against Chapman’s slider, which he threw a little over 16 percent of the time during that span. Batters aren’t hitting poorly against the offering just because they’re getting fooled by not getting the fastball; the pitch is also thrown hard (87.6 mph average in his career) and with some serious movement. Just take a look at the average horizontal movement of his slider for each month of his big league career.

Note: The lower the number, the more movement a pitch has

(By the way- see that little dot in the lower right hand corner of the chart just above 2017? That was the slider he threw to Miller. It moved 11.26 inches away from him. That’s absurd.)

Chapman’s slider is so good, in fact, that it compares favorably to the one owned by teammate CC Sabathia. Sabathia’s slider—which has long been considered one of his best offerings—also sits in that -2.5 to -7.5 inch range of horizontal movement. Even as Sabathia has lost velocity, he has gotten his slider to move even more, which helped him post the second highest soft contact percentage amongst all starting pitchers last season. While this is only one case, it does suggest one can survive a drop in velocity if one has great secondary pitches in the arsenal.

Of course, Chapman is not going to maintain his fastball velocity forever. It also remains to be seen whether his slider will lose its effectiveness once he does start experiencing a drop in velocity. No one knows for sure when it will begin to show signs of decreasing, but when it does, there is still reason to believe Chapman will still be an elite reliever because of his slider. Until that day comes, however, let’s just continue to enjoy highlights like the one above (sorry Brad) and hope that Chapman pushes off that day for a long time.

While this sent me down a rabbit hole of disgusting hematoma pictures and how to treat them — apparently cabbage and mustard can actually help — the more important matter at hand is who we’ll see donning pinstripes in place of Gregorius for the month of April.

I’ll break the other bad news right now.

The rational replacements for Gregorius aren’t nearly as exciting as the grand prize in the Aroldis Chapman trade. Torres has earned scouts’ attention, not only because of his Arizona Fall League MVP trophy, but because of his success and poise at 19 years old. Backing up the critical acclaim with a .464 average and 1.448 OPS over 28 at bats this spring, Torres seems ready to slot in at short if the Yankees want to blow up headlines and fantasy baseball drafts this close to the start of the season. The bat control he showed on his first homer of spring, going the other way on a 3-2 fastball off the plate was one of the things that impressed myself and others the most.

If this decision was that easy, Torres jerseys would be already be sold out.

For one, I don’t even see the top prospect staying at shortstop long term, and others agree. A move to third base or second seems most likely as he solidifies his approach at the plate. As the skeptical chatter about how his range will play at the major league level bubbles into our conscious, it only validates this point.

There is the also the inevitable ‘prospect control’ matter, which has caused some of the most able bodied prospects to stick around the minors — Kris Bryant always comes to mind — a few days longer to promote long term visions of workability in free agent budgets. This discussion of ‘super two’ players deserves a thousand words on its own, but the details are less interesting than an accounting textbook, so I’ll do my part to retain some BP Bronx readers and punt the topic to other sites. As much as the Yankees may stress Torres’ development, the money involved is a clear matter of importance as well.

In the wake of all this speculation, Torres was just reassigned to Double-A Trenton, which will soon put to sleep the already tired critique that the Yankees’ number one prospect doesn’t have any at bats above High-A. We should see Torres in the Bronx this year, at the earliest sometime in June, but there is an equal chance a September call-up is the more accurate prediction.

The Trenton Thunder open their season on Thursday, April 6, against the Erie Seawolves (Detroit Tigers Double-A affiliate).

Replacements

All short-term in my eyes. The Gregorius injury is enough to promote some caution and his removal from the World Baseball Classic, but not discouraging enough to expect a completely lost 2017 season.

PECOTA pegged Didi for just under a 2 win season, with a .259 average and 14 home runs at their 50th percentile outcome (reasonable expectation). While the 100th percentile (bold expectation) of a .290 season and another shot at 20 home runs may seem like a pipe dream, take away roughly 100 at bats from Gregorius, and we’re still in the realm of valuable production at a premium position.

Ronald Torreyes, Ruben Tejada and Pete Kozma are the players of note that should see uptick in consideration for at bats.

Torreyes, who comps well to a player out in San Francisco by the name of Joe Panik, graduates from utility defender to a candidate who should exceed his 99 total innings at shortstop in 2016 very quickly.

Tejada always finds himself in the right place at the right time. Last season he was picked up by the St. Louis Cardinals to fill the void created when Jhonny Peralta went down with a bad thumb. A good thing to remember about Tejada is that Mike Matheny, a relatively strict manager when it comes to liberal prospect use, only started favor the 2016 breakout Aledmys Diaz late in Spring, after a Tejada injury manifested just prior to opening day. While there may be some merit to Matheny’s want for Tejada in early 2016, I’m doubtful that the former Mets starter is anything but a deep bench bat at the major league level.

To make things worse, Tejada’s defense has seen some decline in the past few years. With limited reps at the major league level and mediocre results to show, the fountain of youth is the only remedy I see for the kindling of life in a player I thought was much older than 27 years old.

Kozma is the third and final candidate for playing time, and while I entertained the idea of excitement for Tyler Wade, a young middle infielder who scored 90 runs at Double-A Trenton last season, the short term impact this situation has makes me skeptical the Yankees start handing out starts to even less proven talents than Torres.

I may be one of the only ones who remembers Kozma’s clutch RBI in game five of the 2012 NLDS, and to say that was the apex of Kozma’s career isn’t a brash. Kozma had 450+ at bats in 2016 with Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, batting only .209 with a slugging percentage below .300. If Kozma is anything but an afterthought in this situation, even with a glove that has shown promise at the major league level, I will be one surprised individual.

What we have in the mix for time at shortstop is the 2016 utility man Ronald Torreyes, flanked but two much less appealing options in Ruben Tejada and Pete Kozma. Torreyes’ performance last season and his flexibility around the diamond has earned him a chance to prosper with a small sample of regular playing time. I think depth is necessary, which is why Tejada and Kozma should be in the discussion, but the only player that can return value is Torreyes.

I’m eager to see the results of some trust extended to the 24 year old. It’s not Torres time quite yet, but it sure seems like Torreyes time.

Photos: Kim Klement, Jasen Vinlove/USA Today Sports

Since the ban is just 30 games, Chapman will become a free agent after the season. There was a chance he would be under team control for two seasons if he was held out more than 40 games in 2016.

Here’s Chapman’s statement on the decision to forgo his right to appeal:

“Today, I accepted a 30 game suspension from Major League Baseball resulting from my actions on October 30, 2015. I want to be clear, I did not in any way harm my girlfriend that evening. However, I should have exercised better judgment with respect to certain actions, and for that I am sorry. “The decision to accept a suspension, as opposed to appealing one, was made after careful consideration. I made this decision in an effort to minimize the distractions that an appeal would cause the Yankees, my new teammates and most importantly, my family. I have learned from this matter, and I look forward to being part of the Yankees’ quest for a 28th World Series title. Out of respect for my teammates and my family, I will have no further comment.”

And a statement from the Yankees:

“The New York Yankees support the decision made by The Commissioner today. We are pleased that Aroldis has accepted this discipline.”

Some more notes on this suspension: The New York Post’s Joel Sherman reports that Chapman cooperated with the investigation and owned up to violating Major League Baseball’s policy. The MLBPA also released a statement supporting Chapman’s decision and opposing “the mistreatment of others by playing or non-playing personnel.

Commissioner Manfred announced that A. Chapman has accepted a 30-game suspension w/o pay, effective Opening Day: pic.twitter.com/SrEaCTfei0

— MLB Communications (@MLB_PR) March 1, 2016

Chapman will continue on with the team in spring training and can return on May 9th.

The Yankees acquired Chapman from the Reds in December in the midst of a domestic violence investigation. He was not arrested or charged following an incident with his girlfriend in October in which he allegedly choked her and fired eight rounds from his gun into a wall.

Lead photo: Butch Dill / USA Today Sports

A year ago I would have wholeheartedly agreed with Ben’s assessment. In fact, last September as a second straight non-playoff season wound to its end, I wrote that the Yankees were “destined for a down period, the type every other team goes through every few years, and this time there’s not much they can do about it.”

But the Yankees defied my expectations and reached the playoffs in 2015 thanks to surprising contributions from some players — notably Alex Rodriguez, Mark Teixeira and Carlos Beltran — that I had assumed to be dead money.

Still, three months ago I still assumed a short rebuild period was on the way. The Yankees’ 87 wins in 2015 didn’t seem repeatable with the team’s core aging and its depth chart stuck with some hard-to-fill holes. Brian Cashman’s commitment to youth meant the Yankees’ wouldn’t sacrifice prospects to restock the current team, which meant they would stumble through the next three years making due with what they had.

Then, Cashman went out and traded for Aaron Hicks, Starlin Castro and Aroldis Chapman and parted with only a backup catcher, middle reliever and four largely insignificant prospects. Suddenly the 2016 Yankees appear better on paper than last year’s team, and 85 wins looks like the floor for the upcoming season.

After all that’s happened in the last calendar year, from a surprise playoff berth to an impressive off-season, I’ve come to believe the Yankees can in fact have it all. Cashman is walking a tightrope, trying to contend while counting down the years until Teixeira, Rodrguez, Beltran and CC Sabathia come off the books and a crop of superstars becomes available. He’s not only kept from falling during this high-wire act, he seems to have kept himself impeccably balanced.

Despite his pessimistic view of the short-term future, Ben concedes the Yankees will probably compete for a playoff spot in 2016. This will be a team without stars, but thanks to Cashman, one without serious holes, especially if a mid-rotation starting pitcher arrives before Opening Day.

Let’s fast-forward to 2017. Teixeira and Beltran will be off the books, and Greg Bird and Aaron Judge will likely inherit playing time with their departures. The Yankees will likely still have to pay Chase Headley, Brian McCann, A-Rod and Jacoby Ellsbury more money than they’re worth, but a young position-player core will be in place, and by that time the Tanaka-Severino-Pineda-Eovaldi starting rotation will have hit its prime.

There’s little sense in predicting as far into the future as 2018, but it seems reasonable to assume much of the emerging group of 20-somethings will remain assembled, with other additions to prop them up. Cashman has shown in recent years an impressive ability to acquire real big-league value without sacrificing much of consequence. Eovaldi cost David Phelps. Didi Gregorius cost Shane Greene. Starlin Castro cost Adam Warren. No general manager wins every trade, but Cashman seems to be coming close. If there’s any executive in baseball I trust to make the kinds of incremental improvements that boost a team from 80 wins to 85, or from 85 to 90, it’s the guy running the Yankees.

Ben’s forecast for a Yankee decline rests on the idea that though the 2015 core was overpaid, it provided value that will likely dwindle over the next few years. And while this is true, it doesn’t take into account the group whose value will presumably increase between now and 2018. The progression of Gregorius, Eovaldi, Severino, Pineda, Castro, Bird and Judge, plus any additions Cashman makes over the next few off-seasons, should counteract some of the graying and keep the Yankees above water. Like the 2013-15 Yankees, the 2016-18 squads will feature several high-mileage players trending downward. But unlike recent teams, these next few will also include a promising group of youngsters.

The Yankees are rebuilding, but so far they’ve managed to prepare for the future without totally sacrificing the past. It’s a tough act to pull off, but right now it appears to be working.

They likely won’t be great team at any point during the next three years, but the Yankees might very well be better from 2016-18 than they were from 2013-15. At the very least it remains quite possible they remain above .500 and in playoff contention each season until the 2018 cavalry comes to join the prospects and restore the Yankees to glory.

Lead photo: Noah K. Murray/USA Today Sports

An often overlooked part of a bullpen is the “bridge” from the starting pitchers to the elite relievers. After all, it doesn’t matter how good a closer is if the team is losing once he enters. Last year, the team was in relatively good shape in the middle innings, due to contributions from Adam Warren, Justin Wilson, and Chasen Shreve. Unfortunately, two of these pitchers are no longer with the organization, and the third, Shreve, is a big question mark going into this season following a second-half collapse in 2015. The Yankees will have to rebuild the bridge for next season, and that’s not an easy task.

The good news for the Yankees is that they won’t be forced to put as much pressure on the bridge, as Chapman’s addition theoretically removes an inning between the starters and the setup men/closer. This is hugely important, given two thirds of last year’s middle relievers are gone, and the other is hard to trust. Still, Yankees starters averaged just over five innings last season, so there will be a gap between them and the elite trio. The Yankees will have to build this vital bridge, and it won’t be easy. At the least, there will need to be two or three dependable pitchers to get from the fifth to the seventh.

The most obvious name for this bridge is the aforementioned Shreve, who was one of the team’s best middle relievers for much of the season. A lot of Shreve’s value came from his ability to fortify the middle innings. He totaled 21 innings in the seventh, which was 11 more innings than any other frame. His 2.02 ERA in the first half of the season was huge for the team, but following the All-Star Break, Shreve’s ERA ballooned to 4.76. I detailed the reasons behind Shreve’s collapse right here, but despite knowing what happened, it’s very hard to predict if Shreve can bounce back. At this point, the Yankees will have to hope he can rebound, but they can’t expect another 2.02 ERA. That said, any ERA around three is fine, and it wouldn’t be surprising to see Shreve put up numbers around there.

Finding the second and third relief pitcher isn’t as easy. There are plenty of talented arms, but none of them have a track record of big-league success. The Yankees have six young relievers who could all conceivably make an impact next season: Bryan Mitchell, Branden Pinder, Nick Rumbelow, Jacob Lindgren, Nick Goody, and James Pazos. These players are listed in order of career innings: Mitchell has the most at a mere 40 2/3 innings, so we’ll start there.

Mitchell, 24, has started for the team in the minor leagues, and had a 3.12 ERA in 15 starts at Triple-A last year. He could be a third or fourth starter, but the Yankees gave him a chance as a relief pitcher last season. He totaled 24 innings, to the tune of a disappointing 6.00 ERA. But, it’s important to mention that Mitchell missed time after being hit in the face by a line drive. Luckily, Mitchell was ultimately okay and wasn’t out for very long, but he wasn’t the same pitcher after returning. Before the injury, Mitchell had a 4.03 ERA. Afterwards, his ERA was 12.46. That makes his 6.00 ERA understandable, but also worrisome. While it shows that he’s a better pitcher than what last year’s numbers showed, there’s the concern that Mitchell will have trouble bouncing back from his scary injury. Last season was rough for the young pitcher, but he’s still a very talented player. Beat writers have noted that Mitchell is a popular ask in trade talks, and he could be a decent option in the middle innings next year.

Next up is Branden Pinder, the owner of 27 2/3 major-league innings, all recorded last year. There’s good news and bad news with Pinder. The good news is his 2.93 ERA last season, and the bad news is a 4.72 FIP and 4.55 BB/9 to go along with the shiny ERA. A high walk rate and low groundball rate are what fueled Pinder’s frightening FIP, and he’ll have to get both under control if he wants to experience prolonged success. Pinder’s minor-league numbers don’t suggest an issue with control, so the biggest X-Factor will be his ability to induce groundballs. If the 26-year-old can cut down on the walks and keep the ball on the ground more, he could have an impact in 2016.

Despite struggling in Triple-A last season (4.27 ERA), Nick Rumbelow received a cup of coffee last year, throwing 15 2/3 innings of 4.02 ERA ball. Rumbelow may have more upside than Pinder, but he’s less likely to find immediate big-league success, as he’s struggled to put up anything better than average numbers in the minors recently. Rumbelow will be on the roster fringe, and may need a good performance in Spring Training to make the 25-man roster for Opening Day. He’s not a pitcher that the Yankees will expect to handle important innings early on, and has a better chance to contribute later this season and in 2017.

Now we get to the big name, Jacob Lindgren. The Yankees took Lindgren with their first draft pick (55th overall) in 2014, and he’s absolutely dominated in the minor leagues. Lindgren, when healthy, is possibly the best relief prospect in the minors, and has yet to have a K/9 in the single digits at any level of professional baseball. The issue, though, is health. Lindgren underwent surgery to remove bone spurs in his elbow, knocking out his 2015 season after just 29 innings. If Lindgren can cut down on the walks, his elite strikeout rates gives him closer upside, and the 22-year-old could easily separate himself from all the other young relievers.

If Lindgren is the king of ridiculous strikeout numbers in the minors, then Nick Goody is the king of a ridiculous ERA. Last season, Goody posted a 1.73 ERA in Double-A and a 1.31 ERA  in Triple-A, along with a double-digit K/9 and reasonable walk rate. Goody wasn’t exactly dominant in the majors, with a four runs allowed in 5 2/3 innings, but that’s a very limited sample size. Goody’s raw talent isn’t anything special, but the 24-year-old’s eye-popping stats are sure to get him a look in the Spring.

Speaking of eye-popping stats, James Pazos posted a 1.09 ERA in Triple-A last year. Pazos, the only lefty in the mix, has elite velocity (for a left-hander) but doesn’t have any special secondaries. Still, he was utterly dominant in the minor leagues, and the Yankees are in love with him. When asked who was untouchable at the trade deadline, Hal Steinbrenner said Luis Severino, Greg Bird, Aaron Judge, Gary Sanchez…and James Pazos. The fact that he was mentioned in the same breath as the team’s best prospects says a lot about the 24-year-old, and the team already has confidence in him as a pitcher. Despite throwing just five major-league innings, the majority of his innings came in the ninth—a rare thing to see with pitchers merely receiving a cup of coffee.

All of these arms are very intriguing and could be late-inning relief pitchers in the future. But, what matters to the Yankees is present performance, and not all of these relievers are ready to be difference makers next season. Of all of the pitchers, Mitchell is the most likely to make the team out of spring training, along with Pinder. If Lindgren is healthy and back to old levels, there’s a good chance he makes the team as well. Pazos, Goody, and Rumbelow have a chance at making the bullpen, but it will take successful spring training performances. It’s challenging to choose one or two of these pitchers to join Shreve as the “bridge,” given their lack of track record, but for now Mitchell seems to be the most likely to get that role. If Lindgren is 100 percent, he absolutely deserves the role, but it’s hard to tell how he will look at this point.

The issue with the Yankees bullpen isn’t their lack of depth overall, but their lack of proven options. They have plenty of talented arms, all of whom I’ve mentioned above, and while they are likely major-league ready, that doesn’t mean they are ready to form a successful bridge to the elite relievers. Out of these pitchers, at least one or two should be up to the task, but it may take time for the team to find those pitchers and consistency could be hard to come by. Spring training will be a major determinant in who forms the bridge, but if I had to choose one now, Mitchell and Lindgren, along with Shreve, would be the best options in the middle innings.

Lead photo courtesy Gregory Fisher-USA TODAY Sports

Having an incredible bullpen will obviously help the Yankees. Besides thwarting comeback attempts and controlling close games, the Betances-Miller-Chapman trio will partially compensate for New York’s underwhelming rotation by lessening the starters’ pressure to pitch deep into games.

That said, it’s not clear that trading for Chapman was the best baseball move for the Yankees given their needs, farm system, and payroll situation (leaving aside the hazy moral implications of the trade).

For one thing, this move won’t dramatically improve the Yankees’ eighth or ninth-inning situations—Chapman over Miller in the ninth and Miller over Betances in the eighth are slight upgrades if upgrades at all. The real boost comes in the sixth and seventh innings, where Betances will be considerably better than anyone else Girardi could send to the mound. The question with this trade, therefore, is whether improving the middle innings is worth the money and prospects the Yankees gave up for Chapman.

The cost for the hard-throwing lefty wasn’t absurd, in part thanks to the domestic violence charge hanging over his head. The Yankees parted with four prospects, only two of whom ranked among the team’s top 30, according to Baseball America. They’ll pay Chapman somewhere around $13 million after arbitration, a reasonable cost for a player of his caliber.

In the old days of King George Steinbrenner, when no cost was too great for the Evil Empire, this would have been no problem. The Yankees would slot Chapman in the bullpen and go spend big on a starting pitcher or maybe right fielder. But the team’s new reality includes financial prudence, which means assets spent on Chapman can’t be spent elsewhere. And if the Yankees fail to improve their starting rotation because they don’t have the money or prospects to bring in an upgrade, or if they end up a starting pitcher or infielder short one day because Rookie Davis and Eric Jagielo are gone and ownership won’t spend more to fill the holes, the Chapman trade will be a failure. Because when you’re balling on a budget, as the Yankees are, you don’t buy a Lamborghini when a Honda will do, especially if you still need to save up rent money.

Instead of filling a hole, the Yankees built on a strength. This is a fine strategy when there’s room for excess—signing a fourth elite starting pitcher when you already have three makes sense because all of them fit in a rotation—but not so much when there’s a playing-time crunch. And though Betances, Miller, and Chapman will all contribute to the 2016 Yankees, each of their respective values is diminished by the presence of the others. In a traditional bullpen, the second-best reliever doesn’t pitch as often as the best, and the third-best doesn’t pitch as often as the second-best. While Chapman, Miller, and Betances are all capable of throwing 210 combined innings in a season, there likely won’t be opportunity for all three to do so. More likely, the trio will combine for something like 180 frames. So because Chapman will take innings away from Betances and Miller, he’s not really adding 70 innings of elite relief, but something more like 40. An elite reliever is most valuable in an otherwise empty bullpen in which he’s stealing innings from replacement level bums, not in a stacked ’pen where he’s taking opportunities from All-Stars. The more top relievers you add, the more the returns inherently diminish.

There’s another reason most teams don’t have Dellin Betances-level relievers pitch the seventh inning (besides the fact that Betances-level relievers barely exist): It’s not that hard to find guys capable of handling 50-60 innings of medium-leverage work. Last offseason the Yankees got Justin Wilson for a backup catcher. In other years Girardi has found productive innings from non-prospects or cheap castoffs like Shawn Kelly, Boone Logan, Clay Rapada, Luis Ayala, and Alfredo Aceves. Dave Robertson wasn’t a highly touted prospect. Betances himself was a failed starter. A shrewd team will create valuable relievers from nothing, not spend big to acquire them.

Instead of trading for Chapman to push Betances to the seventh inning, the Yankees could have signed someone like Mark Lowe, Steve Cishek, or John Axford on the cheap or used Bryan Mitchell or Ivan Nova in middle relief. Heck, they could have kept Wilson for a fraction of Chapman’s price. Or they could have held onto Adam Warren and instead used half of the package that got them Chapman to acquire Starlin Castro. Any of these options would have moderately hurt the Yankees in the sixth and seventh inning but saved the team millions of dollars, several prospects and some potential headaches if Betances or Miller ends up dissatisfied with a diminished role (not to mention the moral and practical pitfalls that come with the domestic violence allegation).

Deep, menacing bullpens are baseball’s latest fad, ushered in by the two-year success of the Kansas City Royals. And sure, it’s cool to have three shutdown arms that can end a game in the sixth inning. But an optimal allocation of the Yankees’ resources would distribute the money and prospects spent on Chapman toward a starter, an outfielder, or next year’s trade deadline. Chapman will be fun, but for a team that’s increasingly thrifty, he wasn’t the right allocation of resources.

Lead photo courtesy of David Kohl-USA TODAY Sports

Parents are consistently telling children that they are one-of-a-kind, and for most of us it’s absolute poppycock. However, if the Chapmans ever relayed this platitude to young Aroldis, they were spot on. The New York Yankees just acquired a pitcher who is utterly unique.

Not only is the 27-year-old different from all his peers, but he’s different in a way that has an important application on the baseball field. He’s not the only guy from Belarus, the guy who looks most like Mr. Potato Head or the best poet. Throwing the hardest fastballs in the game is awfully useful. Velocity isn’t everything, but at Chapman’s level it’s most things.

Given that the southpaw has a very particular skill set it, should be no surprise that the conventional wisdom of pitching may not always apply for him.

Often pitching coaches tell pitchers that they need to keep the ball down, and they tend to listen. Most pitchers throw significantly more of their offerings below the midpoint of the strike zone than above it. There is some sound logic to this. Low hard pitches are good bets to produce ground balls, and most secondary stuff is much more effective below the zone.

However, if you throw 100 mph things are a little different. The Brooks Baseball chart below shows where Chapman’s pitches went last year.

Although he did like to throw low-and-in to right-handers/low-and-away to lefties, by and large “keeping the ball down” is not something he seems to believe in. This falls in line with recent findings about Effective Velocity that shows that fastballs up, especially up-and-in, appear faster to the hitter than their radar gun readings would suggest.

If you’ve got the juice, pitching low in the zone is not a good idea, it only diminishes your best asset. Pitching up is the way to go. This is apparent in how hitters have fared against Chapman. The zone profile below shows his career batting average against by zone.

The only way opposing batters have gotten to former Reds closer is by hitting pitches low in the strike zone. A breakdown of his hits allowed by location shows the pattern continued in 2015.

These numbers are derived from a fairly small sample, but they give an idea of how Chapman’s effectiveness increases the higher he goes in the zone. It probably wouldn’t be wise for him to throw high fastballs every pitch as batters might catch on, but if there’s anyone who could pull it off, it would be him.

Chapman does one thing better than anyone else on earth and as a result he is best served working in a part of the zone where many pitchers are afraid to go. Traditional rules do not apply to him so he needs to live by his own.

When a pitcher struggles it’s not unusual to see a catcher make a slow downward signal with his hand and glove indicating he wants the ball kept low. Sometimes the backstop will even tap the ground to mean it should go in the dirt. With Chapman on the mound those signs can more or less be retired. Brian McCann may even need to come up with a new one for “keep the ball up”.

Until now, there hasn’t be much need for something like that, but McCann’s new closer isn’t like anyone else he’s caught. He’s not like anyone else there’s been.

Lead photo courtesy of David Kohl-USA TODAY Sports

There’s another side of the weirdness of being a sports fan. We’re supposed to not care about the men playing for our team as people beyond any particularly charming quirks or qualities that they may have. When the team employs a rather unsavory character it’s an uncomfortable situation. We’re asked to look the other way and focus on the player’s accomplishments on the field.

Which brings us to Monday’s trade for Aroldis Chapman. There’s no question that Chapman is a reliever of the highest order and that he makes the Yankee bullpen an absolute force of nature. It’s the best bullpen since the 2014 Royals, if not better. If you’re looking for a pure baseball analysis of this move, read Kenny Ducey’s article. He’s more than admirably detailed the fine points of the trade and its implications. You should read it.

That’s not what I’m writing about. What I’m writing about is the fact that the Yankees have traded for a player who is currently being investigated by Major League Baseball under its new domestic violence policy. For a franchise as image-conscious as the Yankees, it’s a strange turn of events to add someone so publicly toxic as Chapman to the roster. News of Chapman allegedly choking his girlfriend and firing several gunshots in his garage sunk a possible trade to the Dodgers during the Winter Meetings. Now, Brian Cashman has acquired him. That’s a proposition that even Andrew Friedman, who has had a wide assortment of unsavory characters on his roster in the past, thought to be too tall an order.

Not every ballplayer is a saint. If one were to assemble a 25-man roster using only those players that were truly pure of heart, it would be an arduous task. Reality states that there will be a bad apple or two in a group of 25 men. What front offices have to asses is at what point does talent become more important than quality of character. At what point does winning become more important than explaining to a small child that we as sports fans can look the other way if a left-handed pitcher can throw a baseball 100 mph in his sleep?

The lack of overwhelming resentment towards this trade is more than a little disturbing. Every single societal value we posses tells us that violent crime is extremely reprehensible, and if there was a hot-button issue in sports in 2015, it was domestic violence. Indeed, even when the initial report of the Chapman incident surfaced on Yahoo Sports, the predominant reaction was one of shock and disdain. Yet now that a month has passed and Chapman is going to be wearing pinstripes, it’s like we all just got a shiny new toy for baseball Christmas. It’s big and flashy and melts radar guns! It’s a ridiculous bullpen! The Yankees can basically play six-inning games!

That’s incredible to be sure. But if anything, we’ve only just shown ourselves what we truly think is important. We care more about the uniforms than the people wearing them. Would Freidman’s past employment of Josh Lueke  be so infamous if Lueke was an excellent pitcher? Sports figures such as Patrick Kane and Kobe Bryant have shown us that the best way to shake off despicable allegations is to possess an infinite well of talent to drink from. Chapman may already be the next member of that group.

Of course, things work out quite well for the Yankees even if Chapman is suspended in the end. If Chapman misses more than 45 games by sitting on the Restricted List during a theoretical suspension, his free agency would be pushed back another year. The Yankees would then get themselves a year and a half of the Cuban Missile. From a pure business perspective, it’s a rather brilliant stroke of work by Cashman. From a pure business perspective, it’s a no-lose situation. If Chapman isn’t suspended, he’s got a full season of the most disgusting bullpen in baseball, and quite likely a draft pick to collect at the year’s end. If Chapman’s suspended, he may be able to squeeze two postseason runs out of his relief corps. And either way, fans will show up in droves, regardless of what Chapman has done. The uniforms are far more important, and at the end of the day, it’s the Yankees. People will come, Ray. People will most certainly come.

That doesn’t change that at the end of the day, we don’t care about what Aroldis Chapman has done. We don’t care that he allegedly choked his girlfriend and that he’s under investigation by the league. We don’t care because he’s not our coworker, he’s the Yankees’ coworker, and we’re going to cheer for him when he takes the mound to mow down the opposition. We don’t care because sports is entertainment, and there’s nothing more entertaining than the thought of an aging David Ortiz trying to keep up with a lefty throwing triple digits.

We don’t care. And that’s sad. It’s truly sad. We as a society have taken leave of our morals when it comes to the off-field conduct of athletes. If our workplace hired someone who was known to be a domestic abuser, we’d be horrified. But when the Yankees trade for a domestic abuser who happens to have the ability to throw a ball at Mach 3, it’s cause for celebration. There’s no question that Chapman makes the Yankees better on the field. However, the mental gymnastics necessary to feel wholly good about this trade are disturbing. So when you explain to your child why it’s okay that Aroldis Chapman gets a standing ovation when he’s introduced on Opening Day, make sure you’re honest with yourself, too.

Lead photo courtesy of Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports