On Tuesday, free agent reliever Aroldis Chapman and the Boston Red Sox agreed on a one year, $10.75 million dollar contract, ensuring that the former Pirate isn’t coming back to Pittsburgh in 2025.
His new deal with the Red Sox — his seventh major league team and fifth in the last four years — was a modest $250K raise from the one year deal he signed with the Pirates last year. That deal, which instantly made him the highest-paid Pirate in 2024, raised a lot of eyebrows for many reasons.
It was unusual for the Pirates to shell out that much money on one player in free agency, but more importantly, it seemed like a luxury addition. The Pirates’ bullpen was considered the team’s greatest heading into 2024, Led by two-time All Star closer David Bednar and a supporting cast that included Ryan Borucki, Carmen Mlodzinski and Colin Holderman — all coming off great seasons.
Spending double digits on Chapman just seemed like a bit of a misallocation of what little resources the Pirates had. Despite that, his arrival did set up a one-two punch with Chapman taking the set-up man to Bednar’s closer status — or at least, that was the plan.
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