Yankees trade All-Star closer Chapman to Chicago Cubs
HOUSTON — The New York Yankees, with their enormous payroll and appetite for winning now, are not in the habit of trading away star players at their peak. But they did so Monday, sending closer Aroldis Chapman to the Chicago Cubs for a four-player package centered on the 19-year-old shortstop Gleyber Torres, according to a person in baseball with knowledge of the trade.
Also in the deal, the Yankees reacquired pitcher Adam Warren, who had been dealt to the Cubs in December for second baseman Starlin Castro, and the minor leaguer outfielders Billy McKinney and Rashad Crawford.
Torres, a 6-foot-1, 175-pound shortstop, was rated the 41st-best prospect in baseball at the start of the season by Baseball Prospectus.
Chapman, a four-time All-Star, is the most accomplished, in-hisprime player the Yankees have traded away in the middle of a season since they sent Rickey Henderson to Oakland in 1989. But the Yankees can claim with some legitimacy that this is not the start of a fire sale — at least not yet.
The acquisition of the versatile Warren allows them to fortify their bullpen or to more easily trade one of their starting pitchers — Ivan Nova is in the final year of his contract — in exchange for help with an offense that ranks 23rd in baseball in runs scored.
Their improved play of late — they have won 6 of 8 and 9 of their past 14 against Cleveland, Boston, Baltimore and San Francisco — has them at a season-high two games over .500 and 4½ games short of a wild-card berth. They are 7½ games behind first place Baltimore in the American League East.
The Yankees took some heat when they acquired Chapman from the Cincinnati Reds in December, shortly after his involvement in a domestic violence episode became public. The Boston Red Sox and the Los Angeles Dodgers were among those who dropped their pursuit of Chapman once they learned of the episode.
But when the Reds drastically reduced their asking price on Chapman, the Yankees swooped in and acquired him for four modest prospects.
General manager Brian Cashman admitted that the low cost to acquire Chapman was simply too good to pass up — even as Major League Baseball was just starting to investigate the episode under its new domestic violence policy and criticism of the Yankees surfaced from domestic violence advocacy groups and at least one politician.
Though Chapman, who fired eight gunshots into the wall of his garage after an argument with his girlfriend, expressed little remorse, he served a 30-game suspension and had become an attraction at Yankee Stadium, where fans swooned each time one of his fastballs registered more than 100 mph. He was 3-0 with 20 saves and a 2.01 earned run average. Chapman struck out 44 in 31⅓ innings.
The loss of Chapman notwithstanding, the Yankees still have a formidable bullpen — at least for now — with Andrew Miller and Dellin Betances, both All-Stars who can close down the eighth and ninth innings.
Warren could fit into the seventh-inning role, something he excelled at in 2014. Warren struggled while pitching mostly in relief for the Cubs, carrying a 3-2 record this season with a 5.91 ERA. He was recently sent back to Class-AAA Iowa to prepare for a return to the rotation. He pitched well in his one start this season, allowing three hits and one run this month against Cincinnati.
The main attraction for the Yankees was Torres, a Ven-
ezuelan who signed with the Cubs for $1.7 million in 2013 and hit .293 as the youngest player in the Low-Class-A Midwest League last year. This season, he is hitting .275 with nine home runs, 47 RBI and a .791 on-base-plus-slugging percentage in the HighClass-A Carolina League.
McKinney, 21, a 2013 firstround pick by Oakland, has seen his stock slip. He was batting .252 with one home run at Class-AA Tennessee this season. Crawford, 22, an 11th-round pick by the Cubs in 2012, was hitting .255 with 22 stolen bases at Class-A Myrtle Beach.
The return of Warren in the trade means that Cashman was essentially able to trade Caleb Cotham, Eric Jagielo, Rookie Davis and Tony Renda (who went to Cincinnati) and Brendan Ryan (who was traded along with Warren to the Cubs) for a starting second baseman (Castro), a top prospect (Torres), a former No. 1 pick (McKinney) and Crawford.
This has been a largely disappointing season for the Yankees, who believed they were better than the team that lost in the wild-card playoff last year.
Their improved play of late has come behind a rejuvenated starting rotation, a dominating bullpen, solid defense and some timely hitting. But it will be a challenge for the Yankees to continue winning at their recent rate unless they fortify the middle of their lineup.
Designated hitter Alex Rodriguez, who hit 33 home runs as their No. 3 hitter last season, has been relegated to platoon duty against left-handers, and first baseman Mark Teixeira, who was a candidate for the league’s most valuable player until a mid-August injury last year, has a careerlow .325 slugging percentage this year and is playing with a knee that may need surgery before the season is finished.
The Yankees could use some of their assets — a starting pitcher and minor league depth at shortstop and catcher — to acquire help now. Or they could begin to trade away players like Carlos Beltran, who, like Chapman, is in the final year of his contract and would be sought by contenders, for more prospects.
How the Yankees perform in the coming days, here against the Astros and then this coming weekend at lowly Tampa Bay, may help determine whether the trade of Chapman is an anomaly — or a sign of more deals to come.