Article: Aroldis Chapman Has Rediscovered How To Be A Closer

[Alex Mayes]

When the Red Sox signed Aroldis Chapman during the offseason, it was met with quite a bit of skepticism. Over the last handful of years, he had shown signs of aging and was no longer the lights out closer that so many knew him to be. He’s been in the league for an impressive 16 seasons, and many figured he would factor into the back-end of the bullpen, but there was no expectation that he'd be used much in high-leverage situations due to his recent "meh" campaigns. Once he got to Boston though, things changed.

Chapman has been trusted to take the ball in late game situations in both the 8th and 9th innings this season. He’s worked in a closer platoon role alongside Justin Slaten. Slaten has struggled to begin the month, so Alex Cora seems to have trusted Chapman to take over more closing duties than just whenever the opposing teams have left-handed hitters coming up in closing situations. The most interesting thing about Chapman this season hasn’t been his ability to lock down the end of games though; it’s the fact that his four-seam fastball is back with a vengeance.

During the last two seasons, Chapman featured his four-seam fastball less than half of the time. Instead of just blowing people away, he featured a sinker and slider more prominently in his pitch mix in an effort to try and keep hitters off balance. It didn’t seem to work very well for him. He posted ERAs of 3.09 and 3.79 in 2023 and 2024. While that’s not awful by any stretch of the imagination, you don’t want your go-to closer living in that realm when he’s supposed to be getting the final three outs in a close game. This season though, he’s sporting a 1.88 ERA thanks, in large part, to that four-seam fastball.

Last year, Andrew Bailey put a focus on off-speed pitches for the entire Red Sox staff, so it was expected that Chapman would have to lean on his secondary offerings more again this year, but things seem to have changed. He’s currently featuring his four-seam fastball 53% of the time, and it’s averaging 98.5 mph, almost a full tick faster than last season. His four-seamer is also rising more this year than in previous years. Currently, the pitch is getting almost three more inches of rise than all other fastballs thrown by left-handed pitchers. That rise doesn’t help with Chapman’s control issues, something he’s always struggled with during his time in the majors, but it does allow for his sinker to be his true strikeout pitch now, given that he's throwing it harder and with as much rise as the four-seamer. It's not that uncommon for a pitcher to have rise on their sinker, but Chapman's is almost unnatural. For reference, Marcus Stroman, long known for his sinker, averages about four inches of rise on the offering — Chapman is at almost 17.5 inches of rise this year!

Aroldis Chapman seems to have rediscovered a pitch mix that has allowed him to be the most successful reliever he’s been in quite some time. Until he proves otherwise, he should be the closer for the Red Sox in 2025. While there is youth in the system behind him, he’s shown that he can be trusted to take the ball in clutch late game situations. That’s something that every successful organization has to have. It’s time to hand Chapman the full-time closer role and let him thrive.

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