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SAN DIEGO – Aroldis Chapman(notes) was summoned from the bullpen one batter too late to make a difference in the game. No matter. The 22-year-old Cincinnati Reds left-hander made do by making history Friday night, throwing the fastest pitch recorded in a major league game, a 105-mph fastball.

Ardolis Chapman's 25 pitches on Friday night (each registering 100 mph or faster, including his record-breaking 105 mph heater) must have been a blur to Padres batters.

The blazing pitch pushed a white-hot pennant race to the back burner. Yes, the San Diego Padres won the game 4-3 to pull ahead of the Atlanta Braves in the National League wild-card race. Sure, the San Francisco Giants all but buried the Colorado Rockies thanks to a dominant performance by Tim Lincecum(notes).

But the lingering memory was of a now-you-see-it, did-I-actually-see-it fastball to Tony Gwynn(notes) in the eighth inning. The pitch was not a fluke: Chapman threw 25 pitches in his 1 1/3 innings of relief, and every one was at least 100 mph. He didn’t throw a slider. He didn’t throw a changeup. Why would he?

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=s ... dres092410

Video is here

http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=12420269



Is this guy the one that got away? We were a couple of million off right? Of course, he could completely blow out his arm, but hes a beast. Pretty cool nonetheless though.

Thats crazy. If his arm holds up he's gonna be a great pitcher.

J-Roc wrote:It would be terrible for anyone to suggest he's an injury waiting to happen.

if he ever gets injured it's all your fault.

Dude is Usain Bolt.

Why does Zumaya's pitch not get rounded up? 104.8? Really?

That was a fun video with the crowd in awe after every pitch. Adrian Gonzalez has some great bat speed and he looked silly on that strikeout. Then the next batter almost takes him deep. Reminds me of when Mark McGwire hit a HR off a 100mph fastball from Randy Johnson in the 90s. I'd like to know how many times that has been done since.

this arm cannot last long, chapman better develop some other pitches to extend his career

hyper316 wrote:this arm cannot last long, chapman better develop some other pitches to extend his career

Throwing 105 isn't as hard on the arm as throwing a 90 MPH slider, which is often the undoing of the superstrong guys.

He's still wasted as a reliever, though.

why isn't Josh Towers on that list??

Schadenfreude wrote:Throwing 105 isn't as hard on the arm as throwing a 90 MPH slider, which is often the undoing of the superstrong guys.

Why is that?

tsherkin wrote:

Schadenfreude wrote:Throwing 105 isn't as hard on the arm as throwing a 90 MPH slider, which is often the undoing of the superstrong guys.

Why is that?

from what i read, throwing a slider usually puts a lot of stress on a pitchers arm..

Schadenfreude wrote:

hyper316 wrote:this arm cannot last long, chapman better develop some other pitches to extend his career

He's still wasted as a reliever, though.

How do you figure? High pitch and innings counts will hurt him because he throws so hard. Hes basically an injury waiting to happen. As a reliever/closer he could be deadly.

darth_federer wrote:
How do you figure? High pitch and innings counts will hurt him because he throws so hard. Hes basically an injury waiting to happen. As a reliever/closer he could be deadly.

$30 million for just a reliever is a lot of money. As with any starter/reliever comparison, you lose a lot of value when a guy doesn't pan out as a starter and is forced to relieve. From a monetary standpoint, the reason why a lot of teams ducked out early on his sweepstakes is because they saw his future as a reliever and didn't see the money matching the investment. Obviously teams like the Reds and us were picturing him as a starter when we were prepared to offer ~$25-30 million for him.

Will he be a flop signing if he never makes a start? Of course not; there are a lot worse ways of investing $30 million, but the return just wont be the same.

darth_federer wrote:

Schadenfreude wrote:

hyper316 wrote:this arm cannot last long, chapman better develop some other pitches to extend his career

He's still wasted as a reliever, though.

How do you figure? High pitch and innings counts will hurt him because he throws so hard. Hes basically an injury waiting to happen. As a reliever/closer he could be deadly.

yeah but he's also gonna be paid like an elite reliever, his contract is really confusing but from what i read he's gonna earn a minimum of 30 million over 5 years and depending on when he reaches arbitration, that figure could be s high as 45 million. That is a lot of money for a reliever, you're basically paying market value even if he turns into one of the best closers in baseball and market value is simply not good enough given the injury risk and the investment they put into him.

Avenger wrote:yeah but he's also gonna be paid like an elite reliever, his contract is really confusing but from what i read he's gonna earn a minimum of 30 million over 5 years and depending on when he reaches arbitration, that figure could be s high as 45 million. That is a lot of money for a reliever, you're basically paying market value even if he turns into one of the best closers in baseball and market value is simply not good enough given the injury risk and the investment they put into him.

Yeah, because of his contract he's essentially earning more than he could ever have hoped for had he been even a Super 2 player. Let's say that got the same amount as Papelbon did for his third and fourth seasons ($6.25m and $9.35m), and was spectacular enough to get a raise to $11.5m in his third arb year. That'd mean total compensation of around $28m over five years...less than the value of his deal, though it'd be comparable if he was a high first round pick. So in buying out those arbitration years, their best-case is to essentially pay him what they'd have paid a comparable rookie.

Value is a little more tricky. Using Papelbon again, because the first four full years of his career are about as good as you can expect to get, and pretending that he didn't suck this year, you'd get an average of around 2.6 WAR annually and an open-market cost of around $10.8m a year (which includes the open-market premium), according to Fangraphs; as such, Chapman can definitely outperform his contract, but he'll need to be very good and fairly healthy.

But it big issue is this: while 2.6 WAR requires that you be a monster in relief, it's pretty pedestrian for a starter...we have four guys at 2.5 WAR or above, all solid-to-good, but none phenoms.

I just assumed starting him in the 'pen was similar to Price and he won't stay in the 'pen, but I haven't followed it at all. Have the Reds said they plan to keep him in a relief role?

satyr9 wrote:I just assumed starting him in the 'pen was similar to Price and he won't stay in the 'pen, but I haven't followed it at all. Have the Reds said they plan to keep him in a relief role?

I think this is their plan. The bullpen for this year and the playoffs and he will be starting next year.

satyr9 wrote:I just assumed starting him in the 'pen was similar to Price and he won't stay in the 'pen, but I haven't followed it at all. Have the Reds said they plan to keep him in a relief role?

Its the plan, but Chapman was very up and down as a starter in the minors, and there are those who felt all along that he was going to be a reliever. His velocity is also obviously nowhere near 100+mph as a starter.

I pitched in high school and slider and curveballs hurt the elbow, and throwing hard hurts your shoulder. We forget there are many parts to an "ARM".

By forcing the ball to curve or split or dive trying to put spin on it hurts your elbow. Trying to throw as hard as you can will wear on your shoulder (rotor cuff). If he can maintain the strengthening of it, you have nothing but old age to worry about.