Sources – Aroldis Chapman and Red Sox agree to one-year deal

Veteran reliever Aroldis Chapman and the Boston Red Sox have agreed to a one-year, $10.75 million contract, sources told ESPN.

The deal, which is still awaiting completion of a physical, adds the hard-throwing Chapman to a bullpen that finished 24th in ERA last season entering the winter with help from left-handed hitters late in the season Inning given priority.

Chapman, who turns 37 before next season, posted a picture of himself wearing a Red Sox cap on social media.

Let’s go! pic.twitter.com/MhJ64TN6Lq

– Aroldis Chapman (@AChapman_105) December 3, 2024

In 61⅔ innings with Pittsburgh last season, Chapman posted a 3.79 ERA and recorded 98 strikeouts while walking. With an average fastball velocity of 98 mph that topped out at 105, Chapman has maintained his elite velocity and elite strikeout rate heading into his 16th major league season.

The Red Sox will be Chapman’s seventh team and he returns to the American League East, where he spent seven years with the New York Yankees. Although Chapman hasn’t closed out since 2021, he could find himself with right-hander Liam Hendriks, who is returning from Tommy John surgery, as well as right-hander Justin Slaten, who impressed as a rookie last season.

Over the course of his career, Chapman posted a 2.63 ERA in 760 innings and 1,246 strikeouts. His strikeout rate of 14.8 per nine innings is the highest in baseball history, nearly three-quarters of a strikeout ahead of Craig Kimbrel.

Chapman, who accepted a 30-game suspension under MLB’s domestic violence policy in 2016 after allegedly firing a gun in his home, was traded from Cincinnati to the Yankees several months earlier. At the trade deadline that year, he was traded to the Chicago Cubs, with whom he won a World Series, and then returned to New York before playing in Kansas City, Texas and Pittsburgh.