CHAPMAN'S HOME AGAIN!

(July 6, 2016 - Source: Jason Miller/Getty Images North America)

Wake up, Yankee Universe! The Cuban Missile’s 133-day flight to a World Championship galaxy far, far away is over! Aroldis Chapman is back in the Bronx! Someone please call the Stadium scoreboard operator and tell him to crank up Rage Against The Machine if you would please – and turn it up to 11!


Aroldis Chapman Yankees Entrance Video from Nick Tyrell on Vimeo.

Someone’s going to have to make an entrance video for Brian one of these days because he’s been cutting and closing deals like Mo for months now … and last night, in the final hours of the winter baseball meetings, he closed his biggest deal to date.

(June 23, 2016 - Source: Mike Stobe/Getty Images North America)

The particulars: 5 years. $86 million. (Richest per-ann deal for a relief pitcher ever.) Opt-out after 3 years. Full no trade first 3 years. Limited no trade final 2 years and no trades allowed for the duration of the deal to any West Coast teams.

While both Chapman and the Yankees brass have made no secret of their mutual desire to reunite since the day he was sent packing for a package of prospects, the pressures of high demand for the limited supply of available top-tier arms coupled with Hal’s and Brian’s relentless refrain about budgets made for some scary moments and even scarier rumors involving second-rate alternatives.

(May 14, 2016 - Source: Elsa/Getty Images North America)

But in the end, everyone was happy except the mystery team (likely either the Marlins or Dodgers) that reportedly offered $6 million more than the Yankees for his services. And, like so many of Chapman’s 9th-inning victims, they were left standing at the plate frozen, frustrated and unfulfilled.

‘I love the organization,’ Chapman told ESPN’s Marly Rivera, adding that he chose the Yankees over the Miami Marlins. ‘They welcomed me with open arms and that’s why I decided to go back. I was hoping I had a chance to go back and it happened. Every player dreams of being a Yankee, and if they don’t it’s because they never got the chance.’

With all that said, I’m ecstatic about this deal for all the obvious reasons, and I’m fine with every bit of it including the opt-out which apparently helped seal the deal. Heck, if he does well enough between now and then that someone else is willing to top this big coin, that only means we got a bargain – and just like this time, we’ll have the inside track at re-signing him.

(May 8, 2016 - Source: Jim McIsaac/Getty Images North America)

And in a worst-case scenario, if he for some reason suddenly declines and isn’t doing as well as hoped in three years, no sweat. If the re-build has gone as planned by then, the Yankees should be roughly in the same place the Cubs and Indians found themselves this year where securing a better closer as a final piece to their championship puzzle was a no-brainer and the cost became less important than the need.

(Sept. 11, 2016 - Source: Maddie Meyer/Getty Images North America)

In such an eventuality, I have total confidence the Yankees could write off the final $34.4 million on those back two years of the Cuban Missile’s deal while simultaneously throwing a welcome party for their new closer with the same ease and panache the Red Sox just did for Chris Sale only yesterday while writing off the $63 million they had invested in their Cuban prospect Moncada. And all they ever got out of him was 19 at bats yielding 12 strikeouts, 4 hits and 1 lousy RBI 

(May 13, 2016 - Source: Al Bello/Getty Images North America)

Bottom line: You’re going to see a lot of crap thrown at this deal and at Chapman himself. I started seeing it almost from the moment glimmers of it getting done first started to appear on my timeline. Crap about how it’s too long, crap about how it’s too soon, crap about how it’s too much money for a reliever, crap about how it’s too much money for such a horrible person….

My response to it all: Swing and a miss. 

Take a seat, Meat.

 

 --Barry Millman
BYB Writer
Follow me on Twitter:  @nyyankeefanfore