The neverending Chapman conversation
November 22, 2009, 9:00 am by iYankees · 2 Comments
If you’re tired of hearing about Aroldis Chapman, I apologize in advance.
Now, from Anthony McCarron (Daily News):
”He is an extremely talented guy,” says one baseball executive who has seen Chapman pitch. “My bet is that it’ll come down to the Yankees and Red Sox, like it always does now. Most of us believe that. To them, it’s only money.
“And I think the Yankees will get him. They can give him a big-league contract over five years for $20 million and they don’t even feel that.”
The unnamed “baseball executive” offers a glimpse into his anonymous head regarding Chapman’s market and expected payday. To McCarron’s interviewee, a $20 million contract over a 5-year period seems like a lot of money, as it is a sum only the Yankees can afford to pay without being afflicted by an assortment of monetary reprecussions (they “don’t even feel it”). If $20 million is considered a large investment to the nameless executive featured in McCarron’s piece, perhaps the figures we’ve heard regarding $60 million paydays are mere exaggerations. Maybe the number is closer to the lower portion of the $15-60 million range, instead.
Then again, Chapman is basically in complete control of his market, so anything can occur. The situation is dissimilar to the Stephen Strasburg deal or the Daisuke Matsuzaka signing, where more power was in the hands of organizational personnel. Whereas Strasburg and Dice-K were confined to a particular set of formal rules and guidelines—they were slaves to the draft process and the posting system—Chapman’s possibilites are endless with regards to free agency. Of course, for a player with what Keith Law referred to as “limitless upside,” I guess that’s appropriate.
Photo by Peter Morgan/AP
The ultimate question of scouting, what do you do with someone who has unlimited amounts of potential and raw talent but has almost no real refined skills or idea of what he is doing.
What do you believe in more, The talent he has or the inability to grow in the areas he lacks?
I will tell you right now I would give him 25 million for 6 years tomorrow… Will that get him? Let’s see if this ends up a bidding war, I doubt either team will do it but he could be the piece that IF he develops into a fraction of his potential for either team he tips the balance of the AL Easts future.
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