TAMPA, Fla. -- Aroldis Chapman
has been in Yankees camp for nearly two weeks now, and one thing we can
report unequivocally is something you probably already know: He is
forbidding.
And that's just in the clubhouse.
On Monday the
Yankees got a chance to see just how forbidding he can be on the mound,
too, at least a "fortunate" foursome of rookies chosen to face him in
his first live batting practice session. Tyler Wade, Jorge Mateo, Ben Gamel
and Cesar Puello each got their turn in the cage, but only one got even
a decent swing. That was Gamel, who lined a Chapman slider into short
right field. The others either kept the bats safely on their shoulders,
corkscrewed themselves into the ground trying to hit the ball or walked
away holding a bat fragment while shaking out a vibrating hand, as Mateo
did after one of his turns.
"They were trying, but they were just
laughing and saying, 'This is unhittable,'" said Carlos Corporan, who
caught for Chapman. "They knew they had no chance. And he wasn't even
throwing hard. Can you imagine 104 with that kind of changeup he has?
You've got to go home, bro. Game over."
Corporan,
who is trying to make the team as the backup catcher, was one of the
few Yankees in that cage happy to see Chapman because, of course, he
didn't have to attempt to hit off him. At the end of Sunday's workout,
coach Tony Pena asked Corporan if he had ever caught Chapman.
"Nope," Corporan said.
"Well, you're catching him tomorrow," he was told.
"I
went home all excited and I woke up like a little kid," said Corporan,
32, a veteran of six big league seasons who is here as a nonroster
invitee. "I was looking to do that. I was like, 'I can die now and I'll
be happy. Now I can go to heaven.'"
Corporan now knows Chapman
about as well as any of his teammates and certainly better than his
manager, because the closer seems to communicate best when he is on the
mound. There is no mistaking his message when he has a baseball in his
hand; it is basically, "I'm going to throw this and you can't hit it."
"He wasn't even trying today, and he was throwing 98," Corporan said. "That's God-given. It's a real talent."
Off
the field, it appears to be a different story. Chapman spends much of
his time in the clubhouse facing into his locker, often while staring
into a smartphone. His interview sessions with the beat writers,
hampered somewhat by a language barrier, often yield one- and two-word
answers and rarely exceed a couple of minutes. (His post-workout
"session" on Tuesday lasted precisely 59 seconds before he was hustled
away by a member of the Yankees PR staff.)
Even manager Joe
Girardi, who said last week he would strive to "get to know" Chapman
before forming an opinion on the domestic violence suspension hanging
over the pitcher's head, basically admitted he had yet to accomplish
that mission.
"I’ve had some conversations, but I mean, they’re
short," Girardi said. "He seems to fit in very well into our clubhouse. I
think our guys accept him, want to be there for him, just like they
would anyone else, but everything I’ve seen is he’s been good in the
clubhouse."
Asked why his interactions with his new closer have
been short, Girardi cited the language barrier, a lack of time and a
responsibility to get to know the other 65 players in camp too.
There
is also, of course, the looming prospect of an MLB suspension, which
always seems to come up in the conversation and understandably makes
both Chapman and his questioners uncomfortable.
"It’s a sensitive issue, and it should be a sensitive issue," Girardi said.
It
doesn't help that there is almost always a daily "tip" to either a
media member or a member of the Yankees hierarchy that this will be the
day commissioner Rob Manfred comes down with his ruling. Nearly two
weeks have come and gone since Manfred said he was getting close to
making a decision on two of the three domestic violence issues involving
ballplayers -- Jose Reyes and Yasiel Puig are the others -- and while he has placed Reyes on paid leave, he has yet to rule on either of the other two.
"I
know that at some point, we're going to hear something," Yankees GM
Brian Cashman said. "Now, it's not out of my mind. But it's not in our
control. We just knew when we acquired him that there would be something
that we're dealing with. Whatever it's going to be, it's going to be."
It lends an air of awkwardness to all transactions with Chapman. Except, of course, when he is on the mound.
"I
just wanted to see what it was like," said Wade, a 21-year-old
infielder. "Obviously I’ve seen him on TV a lot, and it was a good
experience. It was everything I’d heard of and more. It was definitely
difficult, that's for sure. I mean, it’s tough to see the ball coming
out of his hand, especially being a left-handed hitter. It was really
fun."
Fun? "Well, I had one decent swing off him, so I consider that a victory," he said.
Corporan,
who has an opt-out at the end of March, said he would be happy to catch
Chapman again. Just so long as he doesn't have to step in against him.
"No,
I don’t want to hit against him," he said. "In fact, I'm probably going
to become his best friend so if I ever face him, I’ll have half a
chance."
With the enigma that is Aroldis Chapman, that might be the loftiest goal of all.
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