{"id":1686,"date":"2013-03-21T11:03:36","date_gmt":"2013-03-21T15:03:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/?p=1686"},"modified":"2013-03-21T15:29:33","modified_gmt":"2013-03-21T19:29:33","slug":"aroldis-chapman-will-return-to-reds-bullpen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/2013\/03\/21\/aroldis-chapman-will-return-to-reds-bullpen\/","title":{"rendered":"Aroldis Chapman will return to Reds bullpen"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"aroldischapman\"<\/p>\n

Aroldis Chapman never seemed comfortable as he worked innings as a starting pitcher this spring. The Cincinnati Reds will move<\/a> the 25-year-old back to their bullpen according to the Cincinnati Enquirer. <\/p>\n

Cincinnati dropped more than $30 million on the left-handed Champan in January of 2010. At that time Chapman was seen as a front of the rotation starter for years, instead he has developed as one of the best shutdown closers in baseball.<\/p>\n

Chapman and manager Dusty Baker both recently said that they would prefer the pitcher to close and all signs point to that happening.<\/p>\n

John Smoltz, a future hall of famer, started and closed during his big league career. He was surprised to hear the Reds plans for Chapman this spring.<\/p>\n

“I’ll be honest. When I first heard they might make him a starter, I said, ‘Oh, my God. They’re going to take the most dominant left-handed closer in the game and put him in a role that has a lot of ifs, ands or buts,'” Smoltz told MLB.com<\/a> writer Terence Moore. <\/p>\n

The move will make the Reds bullpen one of the nastiest in baseball with Sean Marshall and Jonathan Broxton setting up. It will also leave a hole in the Reds rotation.<\/p>\n

Some may say this is a bad financial move for the Reds but if Chapman truly is a lock down closer in the mold of Mariano Rivera or Trevor Hoffman then it is a foolish move to waste him as middle of the rotation stater.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Aroldis Chapman never seemed comfortable as he worked innings as a starting pitcher this spring. The Cincinnati Reds will move the 25-year-old back to their bullpen according to the Cincinnati Enquirer. Cincinnati dropped more than $30 million on the left-handed Champan in January of 2010. At that time Chapman was seen as a front of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1688,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[499],"tags":[237],"coauthors":[6],"class_list":{"0":"post-1686","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-aroldis-chapman"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1686\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1686"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=1686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}