The Red Sox made their first big signing of the offseason on Tuesday, inking veteran reliever Aroldis Chapman to a one-year, $10.75 million contract. The deal also includes $250K in bonuses, which could bring the total value to $11 million.
Chapman confirmed the deal himself, posting a photo of himself in a Red Sox cap on social media.
The Cuban-born lefty made his major league debut with the Cincinnati Reds in 2010. Since leaving Cincinnati in 2015, he’s primarily pitched for the New York Yankees (two stints), as well as the Chicago Cubs, Kansas City Royals, Texas Rangers, and Pittsburgh Pirates. One of MLB’s hardest-throwing pitchers, Chapman is a seven-time All-Star, was American League Reliever of the Year in 2019, and has won two World Series (’16 Cubs, ’23 Rangers). He also has the distinction of being the first Yankees pitcher to ever give up a home run to Rafael Devers, on August 13, 2017 at Yankee Stadium.
The signing, however, is a controversial move for the Red Sox. In 2016, Chapman became the first player ever suspended by Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association under their Joint Domestic Violence, Sexual Assault, and Child Abuse Policy, which they’d enacted in 2015. The then-Yankees closer served a 30-game suspension at the beginning of the ’16 season after an October 30, 2015 incident at his Florida home. He fired a gun eight times in his garage, and his 22-year-old girlfriend alleged that he’d choked her.
“I’m apologizing because of the use of the gun,” Chapman told reporters at spring training in March 2016. He acknowledged that he used “bad judgement,” but maintained that he never physically harmed his girlfriend.
While prosecutors declined to prosecute due to conflicting accounts and insufficient evidence, MLB’s own investigation yielded enough to penalize Chapman. And unlike the performance-enhancing drug policy, players who serve DV suspensions are allowed to participate in that year’s postseason. Three days after the one-year anniversary of the incident that led to his suspension, Chapman picked up the win in Game 7 of the World Series, ending Chicago’s 108-year championship drought.
In signing Chapman, the Red Sox are signaling a pivot in organizational values. Boston notably backed out of acquiring Chapman from Cincinnati during the 2015 Winter Meetings. The Dodgers then reached an agreement with the Reds, only to walk away for the same reason. After reports of Chapman’s incident surfaced and MLB opened an investigation, the Yankees traded for him on Dec. 28.
A few years later, the Red Sox made a similar decision. Despite needing bullpen reinforcements at the 2018 trade deadline, then-president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski made it clear that the club hadn’t pursed Toronto Blue Jays closer Roberto Osuna, who was serving a 75-game DV suspension (and appearing in court) at the time. “We were not going that route,” manager Alex Cora told reporters before the Red Sox demolished Osuna and his new team, the Houston Astros, in that year’s ALCS.
“After 2015, we agreed to send (top prospects Manuel) Margot and Marco Hernandez to the Reds for Chapman, but it fell apart when we discovered disturbing details about his domestic dispute,” former Red Sox assistant general manager Zack Scott wrote on X. “We actually informed the Reds about it. We pivoted to (Craig) Kimbrel, and Chapman went to the Yankees. I guess enough time has passed without incident for the Sox to be ok with it now.”
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