Red Sox Sign Reliever Aroldis Chapman To One-Year, $10.75-Million Deal

The Boston Red Sox have just made themselves a little bit better and a lot harder to love. This morning, the team signed left-handed relief pitcher Aroldis Chapman to a one-year deal worth $10.75 million, with bonuses that could push it to $11 million. Chapman has long been one of the game’s premier flamethrowing relievers. He is not known for being one of its best human beings. In 2016, Chapman became the first player to be disciplined under Major League Baseball’s Joint Domestic Violence, Sexual Assault and Child Abuse policy. The punishment came following an October 2015 incident at a party in which Chapman allegedly choked his girlfriend, shoved her against a wall, and then went into the garage and fired a gun eight times. As is so often the case with incidents of intimate partner violence, Chapman was never arrested or charged with a crime. Chapman was suspended for 30 games (or roughly 10 to 15 innings) and apologized solely for using the gun. At the time, Ruth Glenn, executive director of the National Coalition against Domestic Violence, said, “I find it upsetting that Mr. Chapman is not taking any responsibility for really bad behavior.”

For those of us who care about such things, Boston’s exciting offseason has suddenly taken a very dark turn. Even if we attempt to remove decency from the equation, it’s hard to deny that in the ensuing years, Chapman’s behavior has occasionally hurt his teams. He was suspended for throwing at a batter’s head in 2020. In 2022, the Yankees fined Chapman and left him off their postseason roster after a series of incidents that ended with him skipping a mandatory team workout. In April of this year, Chapman was fined an undisclosed amount and suspended for two games due to “inappropriate actions.” The Red Sox will be Chapman’s seventh MLB team and his fifth in five years.

As for the baseball side of things, he’s not the dominant force he once was – from 2010 to 2019, he ran a 2.23 ERA and a 41.1% strikeout rate – but there’s little doubt that Chapman still has the tools to be an effective reliever. Entering his age-37 season, Chapman is still one of the hardest-throwing players in baseball. His fastball averaged 97.9 mph, and during an August 7 game against the Padres it touched 105.1 mph, making it the second-fastest pitch of the year and the sixth-fastest ever recorded by Statcast. In 2024, he ran a 3.79 ERA, the second-highest mark of his career, but the underlying metrics were much better. He ran a 2.96 expected ERA and a 3.04 FIP while putting up 1.1 fWAR, which ranked 40th among relievers. He also overcame a very slow start, going from a 4.25 ERA and 4.15 FIP in the first half (which kept the Pirates from being able to trade him to a contender) to a 3.33 ERA and 1.43 FIP in the second.

Since 2020, Chapman has run a 3.57 ERA. His strikeout rate has fallen to 37.1%, but that still makes it one of the very best in the game. More concerning is his walk rate, which has gone from dangerously high to occasionally untenable. Chapman has walked 15.1% of batters over the past five seasons, making him prone to meltdown innings on bad control days. In 2024, his 14.7% walk rate was the highest among all pitchers who threw at least 50 innings. According to FanGraphs’ valuations, Chapman has only put up enough value to be worth the $10.75-million price of his new contract once over the past five seasons.

Still, it’s easy to understand why the Red Sox would think Chapman has more in the tank. He still throws hard, something the Red Sox lacked in 2024. They were one of just four teams that never hit triple digits all season long, and according to FanGraphs, their 94.1-mph average fastball velocity ranked 21st in baseball. Although his four-seam fastball has looked less dangerous – in 2024, Stuff+ rated it as a below-average pitch for the first time ever – he drastically increased his use of his sinker, and that sinker grades out as one of the very best pitches in baseball according to just about any stuff metric. With their focus on pitching development, the Red Sox no doubt figured that they could continue to help Chapman fine-tune his repertoire and dodge Father Time for another season.

Still, for many of us, the baseball side of things will come second. We will have to come to terms with Chapman’s presence on the roster and in the game in our own way, but there is no doubt that it will color the season to come. 

If you would like to support those affected by domestic violence, please consider making a donation to the National Domestic Violence Hotline.