On Monday, the New York Yankees traded closer Aroldis Chapman to the Chicago Cubs, giving a significant boost to a team already well-positioned for a deep playoff run. New York received three prospects, including highly touted infielder Gleyber Torres, and reacquired pitcher and former Yankees draft pick Adam Warren.
As a lifelong Yankees fan, people have been asking me my thoughts on the trade, which can basically be summed up thusly: For a team that had three top relievers in Chapman, Andrew Miller and Dellin Betances, the Yankees sold high on Chapman, who is set to hit free agency at the end of this season, and in return got a top-15 prospect and a major league pitcher who threw quite well during his years in the Bronx.
Most importantly, I'm just glad that I'll once again be able to enjoy watching the ninth inning again.
It pained me to watch my team trade for Chapman in December, when other teams had deemed him untouchable after reports surfaced of a domestic violence incident in which Chapman's girlfriend told police he choked her, pushed her into a wall and threatened her with gunshots fired in his garage. No arrests were made after more than a dozen officers appeared at Chapman's house and found his girlfriend hiding in the bushes.
In addition to the uneasiness of having an apparently unhinged player in my team's clubhouse and on my team's field, it particularly didn't sit well with me that the main reason the Yankees managed to land an All-Star closer at the bargain-basement price of four unexciting prospects was because they were willing to look the other way from an act of violence.
As I wrote at the time, the move was cynical and grossly opportunistic -- ESPN's Andrew Marchand likened it to the predatory nature of a foreclosure sale -- precluding me and many others from enjoying a win sealed by Chapman.
That was quite startling for someone who grew up idolizing Mariano Rivera, for a fan base that became accustomed to the ninth inning as automatic, yet experienced the same level of excitement every time that cutter left No. 42's hand. With Chapman in for the save, many of us this season have simply been going through the motions, holding our breath and applause until the last out so we could cheer not for the pitcher who nailed it down, but for the team we still can't help but love despite ourselves. Rather than rising to our feet at the opening bars of "Enter Sandman" and gasping with every Rivera-induced broken bat, there was no joy in watching a Chapman save, no matter how hard he threw. A 105 mph pitch is exciting until you imagine that same physical force being used by an athlete against the mother of his child.
So I'm happy to see Chapman go, if only to reclaim my love of late-inning pitching. That's why I sympathize with my colleague Sarah Spain, who wrote Tuesday about her own difficulties with Chapman potentially being a key component of her beloved Cubs' World Series run. "Now, I have to picture Chapman pitching the final out of the World Series," she wrote. "Chapman on the front page of every newspaper in the country. Chapman, the lasting image of the victory. Chapman, the hero."
That image is no big deal for some fans and writers content to settle on the conclusion that "major league teams are in the business of winning, no matter what it takes" (to quote USA Today MLB columnist Bob Nightengale) -- a notion completely belied by years of PED reform, anti-tampering rules, regulations against foreign substances tainting equipment, not to mention MLB's revamped domestic violence policy. The league itself has decided that "whatever it takes" isn't good enough after a certain point.
To be sure, MLB did conduct its own investigation of Chapman under its new policy, suspending him for the first 30 games of the season.
We can talk about whether that penalty was enough -- by comparison, the minimum suspension for a first-time PED user is 80 games -- and yes, relative severity matters in the message to both victims and offenders as to just what kind of infractions the league takes most seriously. With the understanding that MLB players have the strongest union and labor protections in all of sports (and that's a good thing), 30 games wasn't enough to delay Chapman's eligibility for free agency, setting him up for a huge payday after the 2016 season.
MLB's domestic violence policy is more advanced than others in sports, and Chapman did serve his time. So here's where those "win at all costs" fans and commentators will bellow about second chances, admonishing those of us who don't think Chapman has quite yet earned that opportunity. If you're willing and able to accept Chapman as a Cub, that's your right as a fan, and your privilege as someone who has likely never been affected by violence against women. Many of these people are just as quick to dismiss the rest of us as reactionary torch-wielders who secretly hate sports and don't believe in second chances, rehabilitation or reform.
That's simply not the case. The issue with Chapman's moves to both the Yankees and the Cubs isn't just the unsavory opportunism; it's that, as Spain and others have noted, he's shown little contrition in the months since the October incident.
Cubs chairman Tom Ricketts and general manager Theo Epstein should receive some credit for using the words "domestic violence" rather than glossing over Chapman's case as a simple "mistake" (I'm looking at you, Sandy Alderson). But both of them also emphasized that the organization takes players' character very seriously, and we've no indication that Chapman's character has actually improved. He hasn't spoken out about domestic violence education, and has repeatedly dismissed the October incident as "nothing." On Tuesday, he did tell ESPN's Pedro Gomez in Spanish that he has "grown tremendously since that time" after a rather confusing news conference with English-speaking Chicago media.
We have about as much clarity on Chapman's personal growth as we do on just how to feel as fans every time he steps onto a pitcher's mound. I know precisely what many Cubs fans are feeling today, having felt it for the past few months. Even if, as a Yankees fan, I'm relieved to see Chapman gone, there will be a gnawing in my mind should Torres turn into the pro phenom he's slated to become, if the pieces that help build another Yankees dynasty were acquired through a cynically shrewd trade of a player who might not have deserved to be in the Bronx in the first place.
I suppose I'll confront that reality if and when it comes to fruition. For now, at least I have my ninth innings back.
