Rangers Boost Bullpen with Aroldis Chapman Trade

From the time he signed a one-year deal with the Royals in late January, it appeared highly likely that Aroldis Chapman’s stay in Kansas City wouldn’t be long. Either he would continue last season’s slide into irrelevance and get his walking papers once the team decided he was more trouble than he was worth, or he would pitch well enough to make himself a viable midseason trade candidate. He ended up pitching his way into the latter route; on Friday, he was dealt to the Rangers in exchange for two young players, 25-year-old lefty Cole Ragans and 17-year-old outfielder Roni Cabrera.

The 35-year-old Chapman was an All-Star as recently as 2021 with the Yankees, but his career, which had survived a 2016 suspension for violating the league’s domestic violence policy, began accelerating downhill with increasing speed in June of that season. In a nine-game span, from June 10 through July 4, he allowed 15 runs and walked nine in 5.2 innings, blowing three saves. He struggled with his release point and missed time due to elbow inflammation but more or less maintained his hold on the closer spot for the rest of the season, though he finished with a 3.99 FIP (then a career worst) and a 3.36 ERA (his worst mark since 2011). He lost the closer job for good in mid-May of last season, when he went on the injured list for Achilles tendinitis, incurred the team’s wrath by missing three weeks due to a tattoo-induced infection in his leg (one that introduced the phrase “veritable moat of pus” into the lexicon), finished with ugly career-worst numbers (4.46 ERA, 4.57 FIP, -0.2 WAR), and burned his final bridge in the Bronx by skipping a mandatory workout before the Division Series.

Particularly when coupled with his 2021 troubles and past history, that drama no doubt cooled the market for Chapman. During the winter, seven relievers netted deals with average annual values of at least $9 million, including non-closers such as Rafael Montero and Robert Suarez and post-prime closers such as David Robertson and Craig Kimbrel; more than a dozen received multiyear deals. Chapman, though, could only secure a guarantee of $3.75 million over a single season. He did get some incentives in the deal: $312,500 for reaching thresholds of 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, and 55 games, and another $312,500 for reaching thresholds of 12, 16, 20, 24, 28, 32, 36, and 40 games finished. The Rangers will be responsible for those bonuses, as well as about $1.875 million in remaining salary.

In signing him, the Royals didn’t hand Chapman the closer job, instead keeping Scott Barlow in that role after a season in which he notched 24 saves with a 2.18 ERA (but a 3.62 FIP). New manager Matt Quatraro mainly used Chapman in the seventh and eighth innings when the Royals were either tied or had a lead of one to three runs, conditions that accounted for 24 of his 31 appearances — and one that was no small feat for Quatraro given the team’s dismal 23–58 record at the time of the trade. Chapman did convert both of his ninth-inning save opportunities, for what it’s worth.

Chapman had pitched well, posting a 2.45 ERA and 1.71 FIP in 29.1 innings (for all of this analysis, I’m excluding the scoreless inning he threw in his Rangers debut on Sunday). He didn’t allow a single home run, that after allowing 1.26 per nine in 2021–22, and he struck out 43.4% of hitters, his highest rate since 2018 (excluding his 11.2-inning “season” in 2020) and the second highest of any reliever with at least 20 innings this season behind the Orioles’ Félix Bautista. His problem has been a 16.4% walk rate, down from last year’s 17.5% but still gaudy. He’s largely gotten away with it thanks to his strikeout rate and ability to prevent hard contact; his 27.0% K-BB% ranks 11th of the 441 pitchers with at least 20 innings.

When I checked in on Chapman amid his problems in 2021, I posited that inconsistency with his release point could be affecting his velocity and movement. That inconsistency has continued through thick and thin, but he has restored some velocity. His average four-seamer is humming along at 99.4 mph, 1.9 mph faster than last year and faster than any season since 2017, when he averaged an even 100.0 mph; his total of 151 times reaching triple digits this season with his four-seamer and sinker trails only Jordan Hicks (332), Jhoan Duran (254), and Bautista (156), and is already his highest total since 2018. The four-seamer is also spinning at its highest average rate since 2019 and getting more horizontal break than at any time since 2017:

Chapman has tweaked his repertoire somewhat, doubling the usage of his sinker from 5% to 10.1% and more or less cutting his splitter usage in half (from 14.9% to 7.6%). The sinker averages a sizzling 101.3 mph and gets 12.5 inches of horizontal break; batters are 1-for-30 against it, whiffing on 53.8% of their swings. As for the four-seamer, batters are hitting .222, slugging .250 and whiffing 38.7% of the time. They’re not doing any better against the slider (.231 AVG, .269 SLG, 40% whiff) or splitter (.111 AVG, .222 SLG, 60% whiff).

In all, Chapman has held batters to an 85.4 mph average exit velocity, his lowest since 2017; his 32.7% hard-hit rate is also his lowest since ’19 (again excluding the small sample of 2020). He’s allowed just one barreled ball out of 49, a 2.0% rate, and his .201 xSLG is his lowest mark of the Statcast era. All of which is to say that if it weren’t for the walks, he would be considered to be in vintage form, but as it is, he’s still pretty effective. Warts and all, he had a case as the top reliever available on the summer trade market given Liam Hendriks‘ elbow inflammation.

Chapman should be able to help the Rangers, who at 50–34 hold a four-game lead over the Astros in the AL West but have a mediocre bullpen. The unit ranks 12th in the AL in both ERA (4.45) and strikeout rate (22.7%) but a more respectable seventh in FIP (4.03). Closer Will Smith has pitched well, with a 2.70 ERA and 2.75 FIP in 30 innings and 14 saves out of 15 chances, but he doesn’t miss as many bats as Chapman, posting a comparatively modest 25% strikeout rate. The plan right now isn’t for Chapman to supplant Smith but rather to set him up, as a lefthanded complement to Josh Sborz, with manager Bruce Bochy and staff free to figure out where in the late innings he best slots in.

“I think we’re going to use [Chapman] like the Royals used him,” Bochy told reporters. “He can go the seventh inning, eighth inning… I’ve talked to [Smith]. He’s still going to be closing games. If he needs a day off or something, Aroldis can do that, too.”

As for the returns in the deal, the 6-foot-4 Ragans was a 2016 first-round pick out of a Tallahassee high school who underwent two Tommy Jon surgeries (March 2018 and May ’19) that, along with the COVID-19 pandemic, cost him three years of development time. He entered last year as a 40 FV prospect on the strength of a 91–94-mph fastball that topped out at 95, a plus changeup, and above-average to plus command, with the development of his cutter offering a shot at a viable third pitch. Called up in August, he made nine starts for the Rangers, pitching to a 4.95 ERA and 4.91 FIP but with a mere 15.5% strikeout rate.

When Ragans reported to camp this spring, he showed off a velocity spike that turned heads, hitting 99 mph in his first outing of the spring. He landed a spot in the bullpen, where he’s maintained that gain, averaging 96.1 mph with the heater, up from 92.1 mph last year. The pitch has maintained its exceptional horizontal movement (11.7 inches), but even so, it’s been hit hard (93.5 EV, .268 AVG/.561 SLG) despite generating a 28.7% whiff rate. His changeup and curve have been more successful, but the cutter has been hit, too. Ragans has upped his strikeout rate to 22.6%, but his walk rate has climbed from 9.2% to 13.2%, and he’s put up a 5.92 ERA and 5.29 FIP in 24.1 innings. The Rangers had optioned him to Triple-A Round Rock to stretch him out as a starter, and the Royals, who need all of the pitching help they can get, will maintain that plan at Omaha, where Ragans was rocked for five runs in 4.2 innings on Sunday.

As for Cabrera, he’s a Dominican-born righty-swinging outfielder listed at 6-foot-1 and 175 pounds; he’ll turn 18 on July 31. He’s in his second season of the Dominican Summer League and, after hitting .214/.308/.313 as a 16-year-old, has improved significantly, slashing .315/.464/.611 in 73 PA at the time of the trade. From Eric Longehagen’s writeup for the Royals’ freshly-published prospect list, where Cabrera rates as a 35+ FV prospect:

Even though he was young for his class, Cabrera was already quite physical for his age and his 2023 small sample performance is more in line what you’d expect from a hitter who is stronger than most of the rest of the league. He is extremely pull-oriented and is hitting the ball hard with remarkable consistency so far this season, with a 43% hard-hit rate and 14% barrel rate as he makes his way to the Royals. Cabrera’s peak exit velos aren’t crazy, and his present raw power is more pedestrian than the consistency and quality of contact he’s making so far. He strikes me as the sort who has outgrown the DSL and needs to be promoted to the domestic complex to really be challenged. He’s an interesting low-level flier with relevant pull-pop and a prototypical corner outfield frame.

Obviously, he’s a long way off, and given that he’s still in the DSL, he’s even more of an abstraction than most 17-year-old prospects. Moving to a system that ranks 28th on The Board, he’ll help nonetheless.

It’s possible the Royals could have gotten more for Chapman by waiting until some point closer to the August 1 deadline, but given the lefty’s recent volatility on and off the field, dealing him now made sense. On the Rangers’ end, they’ve secured one of the top relievers available this summer, and they’ll get an extra month out of him by striking early.