It's that time again baseball fans; it's trading time in the MLB world. The number one question this season is: "Can the Yankees get back into the swing of things and maintain a dominant season?" Well it's hard to say, because they put on a dominant performance in one game, but then they are shutdown in another. Every swing of the bat and each pitch they make is valuable because they determine if the Yankees take the lead or lose the lead. Batting wise, the team has struggled and the starting pitchers have struggled as well. The Yankees may have been struggling in the batter box lately, but when you have Aroldis Chapman as your closer, you know that bats will be on ice and batters of the opposing team will walk to the dugout with their heads down. As of right now Chapman is the hardest throwing closer the game has ever seen. The guy can throw 105.5 mph and leaves batters confused as they walk off the field. He is a strike-out machine and quite frankly the best thing that has happened to the Yankee bullpen.
What is so shocking to me, is that this guy has been nothing short of dominance ever since the Yankees got him. So why are they so quick to trade him? I don't know if any Yankee fan out there realizes that the Bronx Bombers are putting themselves in trouble with the Chapman trade. I mean, come on guys, Chapman has been so dominant for the Yankees in terms of strikeout. So why would the upper management put the ball club in deeper jeopardy? Releasing Chapman will only make things worse for the Yankees, because at some point Yankee batters will have to face him when he is in another baseball uniform. Let's face the facts here, the Yankees are no longer a home run hitting team, because, honestly, if you have been watching Yankee baseball, they have only been scoring runs by playing small ball. In other words they have only been hitting base hits in the majority of the games they have played so far this season to get in scoring position. If the Yankee batters were to face Chapman, they would struggle to get base hits.
This season has honestly been a devastating one because of the poor decision-making made by the Yankee front office. According to baseball-reference.com "Aroldis Chapman has the best fastball in the major leagues, reaching 100 mph on the radar gun on a regular basis and twice touching a record 105 mph, to establish himself as one of baseball's top closer after defecting from his native Cuba." Now to this point, why would a 27-time World Series Championship team trade a closer that pounds the strike zone? No matter what the media says, or how the Yankee front office puts it, the Chapman trade will haunt them. To fix their mistake the Yankees have to make a move during the winter. It is a must and it is a key move to jump on in order to remain a contender for the World Series Championship.