CLEARWATER, Fla. — Aroldis Chapman is still the Yankees' closer. Manager Aaron Boone made that clear before Friday’s game. It’s just that the Yankees want to expand his role this season by using him in the eighth inning at times.
Chapman is comfortable with the change, because the job description is still to pitch.
“They spoke to me about it. They told me there’s gonna be some situations where I might get in the game in the eighth depending [on the situation],” Chapman said through Yankees interpreter Marlon Abreu. “And for me at the end of the day, I’m here to pitch, right. So, whatever works.”
Chapman pitched the fourth inning on Friday in the Yankees’ 6-5 spring training loss to the Phillies at BayCare Ballpark.
He struck out Darick Hall on a 96-mph fastball, got Kyle Schwarber to pop out, walked Bryson Stott before finishing off Bryce Harper on a 98-mph fastball that the National League MVP couldn’t catch up to. He threw 17 pitches, nine for strikes. His fastball touched 99 and was consistently in the 96 range.
“Good to see him come in first game action and control the strike zone,” Boone said. “He faced all lefties, so not a lot of time for a split [fastball]. I actually probably thought he punched [Stott] out. I thought he struck him out on the splitter. The depth on it from the side was really good. But I thought he looked pretty sharp overall.”
The Cuban native is coming off one of the worst seasons of his career in 2021 and going into the final year on his contract with questions hanging over him.
Chapman finished with a 3.36 ERA (the second highest of his career) and allowed nine home runs, the most he has allowed in an MLB season. He also had one of the worst walk rates (15.6%) of any pitcher in baseball and hitters had the highest hard-contact rate off Chapman in his career.
The Yankees actually used Jonathan Loaisiga as their closer last year as they worked to figure out what went wrong for Chapman. Boone said it was mechanical.
“A lot of times a Chappy has a little bit of a hiccup, usually it’s delivery related. He just gets a little out of sync,” Boone said. “I mean, it’s such an explosive, like at its best perfect kinetic chain, the force that he’s able to create. So he gets a little out of whack there.
“So it’s those things we tried to address and feel like we did during the season last year. We flirted with his pace a little bit. We thought it helped clean him up a little bit. And felt like he got to a pretty good place those last couple months. ... With Chappie, it is always making sure his delivery is in a good spot.”
The decision to change Chapman’s job description is in part to help keep his fastball command sharp, but also to put the bullpen — which is without Zack Britton — in the best possible position at the end of the game.
“We think it’s something that’s gonna serve him well. And certainly serve our staff as a whole well, it’ll be something that we communicate all the time. We’ll try to over-communicate. Hopefully we can be out in front of it going into the day and say ‘today’s a day we see a scenario where you can get in before the ninth, so just try and talk through it and hopefully provide a little more consistency with when he pitches,” Boone said. “Hopefully it will lead to him being more in tune and more consistent and fluid in rhythm.”
In the end, Chapman will still be considered the Yankees’ regular closer, Boone said.
“That’s the job I’ve been doing the last couple of years, being the closer So, God willing, everything works out,” Chapman said. “We’re looking for the best and hoping for the best and like I said, I try to do my best.”
