Saturday, August 28, 2010

Aroldis Chapman: What do you think?

Ok I live in Ohio and we, and I guess any other home town team fan, are very quick to drink our team's Kool-Aid and get excited about any little thing pertaining to us. So if you can look past the fact that I am a Reds fan and give me your honest thoughts, it would be appreciated.

Earlier today Yahoo Sports broke a story on Reds pitching prospect Aroldis Chapman, which can be found here http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/blog/big_league_stew/post/Report-Scout-clocks-Reds-pitching-prospect-Cha;_ylt=AnmBUMFhgwVbaH3dSwP9M3SrO4d4?urn=mlb-265783. Reportedly the kid was clocked throwing at 105 mph. That speed sounds crazy to me. It excites and scares me as a fan. The idea of Chapman fanning batters while throwing pitches at the speed of sound is great. Although as we all know with the recent news of Stephan Strasburg pitchers are very fragile.

First of all, what does this mean for the Reds? I'm wondering if we'll get to see a little of this guy when rosters expand in September. To be honest I don't know a great deal about him. Obviously the guy throws heat but early on I heard he was having some control issues. In the very game when the mythical 105 mph pitch was thrown, Chapman faced three batters retiring all of them swinging. 16 pitches 11 of which were strikes. Not too shabby. Should Reds fans get excited about him or is it too early to tell?

Secondly, what does this mean for collectors? In earlier posts I've stated that I personally think putting stock in pitchers is very iffy do to the risk of injury. A tweak to a pitcher's arm is a much bigger deal than a tweak to a first baseman's arm. With that said, should collectors buy early before he gets hot? His cards are relatively inexpensive if we're comparing them to the likes of Strasburg, Harper and Heyward. Needless to say, yesterday even before this story broke I bought a couple of his Bowman Chrome rookie cards cheap. Maybe I'm on to something or maybe it'll be a flop.

What do you guys think about Aroldis Chapman both as a player and someone to collect?

2 comments:

  1. First off, I'm always concerned about players coming from foreign contries, especially Cuba. They have no pitch counts. The pitchers are workhorses. Once they get to the US, they have some wear and tear.

    As far as him throwing 105, I don't buy it. The gun was probably hot, so he was probably closer to 101 or 102. But even if that's the case, the Reds need to get him to settle down from an organizational stand point. They have a lot of money invested in him, if he's throwing like that, he'll end up just like Strasburg. Plus, there is no reason to throw that hard. He can be just as effective throwing 95 MPH, as long as there's a difference in velocity between his fastball and slider.

    As a collector, I would invest in Chapman. The kid is an absolute stud. If the Reds are smart, they'll get him to take something off his fastball. He should be OK. The only thing I would be worried about is Dusty Baker. Dusty has been known to ruin young arms. But Dusty might not even be in Cincy next season, so Aroldis could be safe.

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  2. Good insight. Thanks for your thoughts Dodgerbobble

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