A long Hall
After wild year, Chapman says next goal is Cooperstown
TAMPA — From Cuba to Cooperstown. A year ago, the only thing certain in Aroldis Chapman’s life was that when the Yankees’ season opened he would begin serving a 30-game suspension for violating MLB’s domestic violence policy. Today? Since then, Chapman helped the Cubs win the World Series, signed a five-year deal worth $86 million and returned to the team he learned to love quickly and didn’t want to leave last July when the gas-throwing lefty closer was dealt by the Yankees to the Cubs.
“I had the opportunity to return to the team I wanted to play for. Now it’s just focus and giving my all out there,” Chapman told The Post through an interpreter. “Hopefully in the future I can get to the Hall of Fame.”
Chapman, 29, has a long road to travel to get from Holguin, Cuba, to baseball’s shrine in upstate New York. With 182 saves Chapman enters the 2017 season 61st on the alltime list. Mariano Rivera, a first-ballot Hall of Famer when he becomes eligible, leads with 652. Trevor Hoffman, who received 74 percent of the vote (75 percent is required) in January, his second year on the ballot, is second all-time with 601 saves.
Goose Gossage (310 saves), Dennis Eckersley (390), Bruce Sutter (300) and Hoyt Wilhelm (228) are in the Hall of Fame. However, they pitched in a different era when closers worked multiple innings. Sutter worked 661 games without starting and threw 1,042 innings. Of Eckersley’s 1,071 games, 361 were starts. Gossage appeared in 1,002 games and started 37. Fifty-two of Wilhelm’s games were starts. All of Chapman’s 383 big league games have been out of the pen, from where he has averaged 36.2 saves the past five years.
Lee Smith, who is third on the all-time list with 478, received 34.2 percent this past year, which was his final one on the ballot. Billy Wagner has 422 saves and received 10.2 percent of the votes in his second year. John Franco, fifth on the alltime list and the leading lefty with 424, lasted one year on the ballot. Clearly, there is closer bias among voters. As for the 2016 season, it left an impression on Chapman, who routinely pushes the speed guns into triple-digits.
“It was an unforgettable year for me, the whole experience of getting traded [to the Yankees], getting traded again, winning the World Series,’’ said Chapman, who posted a combined 36 saves in 39 chances with the Yankees and Cubs and added four more in the postseason. “It was an unbelievable year not only for me but for my family. I wanted to come here, the best baseball in the world, means the world to me. I have been to four All-Star games. It was a blessing to go through life and be a champion and fortunate enough to get a nice contract. As a player you want to perform.’’
Chapman is reunited with Dellin Betances in the Yankees’ pen, but Andrew Miller was dealt to the Indians in July shortly after Chapman was sent to the Cubs.
According to a scout who has seen Chapman multiple times this spring, it’s not a fair fight when he’s on the mound.
“He is throwing the slider good and the changeup has been good,’’ the scout said of Chapman, who has appeared in five spring games. “He has three plus-plus pitches and is throwing strikes. I know he hasn’t been facing the 1927 Yankees, but some guys don’t have a chance against him.’’