Aroldis Chapman brings experience , in zone swing and miss to Pirates bullpen.

Pirates sign seven time All-Star Aroldis Chapman to a one year contract

The Pittsburgh Pirates made an unexpected splash on Monday, signing left-handed reliever Aroldis Chapman to a one-year contract worth $10.5 million.

He’s a seven-time All-Star known for his fastball that routinely hits triple-digits, which has helped him strike out over 40% of the hitters he’s faced.

Last season - Chapman split 2023 between the Kansas City Royals and Texas Rangers, again putting up elite strikeout numbers. It was the fifth time he’d hit the century mark regarding strikeouts in his major league career.

He posted a 6-5 record, with six saves mixed in, across 61 games, striking out 103 batters in 58.1 innings pitched while posting a 3.09 ERA (2.39 xFIP) and a 1.8 WAR.

During the Rangers’ World Series run, Chapman allowed just two earned runs in eight innings pitched, walking five and striking out six.

What he brings - It’s all about the strikeouts for Chapman, that and his fastball velocity.

Going back to 2015, as far back as Savant goes, the ‘worst’ percentile Chapman has finished in when it comes to fastball velocity has been 96th. Other than that, it’s either been 99th or 100th percentile.

His Whiff (42.2%) and Strikeout (41.4%) rates were in the 100th percentile last year. The most impressive part is that he had one of the worst chase rates in baseball last year (fifth percentile, 23.4%), which means much of his damage was in the zone.

The chase rate has seen a drastic decrease yearly since 2017, but in the end, when you are pumping in a fastball at triple digits and have multiple secondary pitches to go with it, you will have some success.

Surprisingly, Chapman had much more success against righties than lefties and ended up facing the former more by a wide margin.

Three of his four pitches on Baseball Savant picked up a whiff rate of 40% or more (slider, sinker, splitter), with his four-seam not too far behind at 37%.

Hitters went 7-for-72 against his sinker, which posted a .190 expected slugging percentage in 2023. It also had a 38.2% in-zone whiff rate, the sixth-best mark among relievers that threw at least 100 four-seam or sinkers.

His sinker and fastball had the two best in-zone whiff rates among left-handed relievers (with 100 four-seam or sinkers thrown).

How he fits - The bullpen was already looked at as a potential strength of the roster, already having David Bednar and other young options like Carmen Mlodzinski, Colin Holderman, and Ryan Borucki.

It does add a more established reliever that can fill in a pinch when wanting to give Bednar an extra day off.

Chapman has 698.1 innings pitched, with another 49.1 in the playoffs during his major league career.

Outside of Bednar (197), here are the career innings of some other pitchers that should factor into the bullpen this year for the Pirates.

Mlodzinski (36)

Dauri Moreta (100)

Holderman (84.1)

Borucki (210.1)

Colin Selby, Jose Hernandez, and Kyle Nicolas are other pitchers who made their major league debut last year and may also be relied on to fill some innings out of the bullpen in 2024.

His arrival could allow the Pirates to send Hernandez to Triple-A to continue to work on his control. It also puts less pressure on someone like Borucki, who was good for the Pirates last year but doesn’t nearly have the track record that Chapman does.

The Pirates learned last year that you can never have enough pitching, and seeing as relievers are the most volatile position in baseball, it never hurts to add.

It was curious to see the Pirates invest so much in a reliever, seeing as they have needs elsewhere. But when looking at what he provides purely on the field, it’s hard to find any downside to this.