Source: Jared Wickerham/Getty Images North America
The biggest loser in terms of individual players coming out of this week’s Winter Meetings is closer Aroldis Chapman. Coming off another miserable season for the Cincinnati Reds, it was clear that the team was going into a full-scale rebuild this offseason, with Chapman as the most desirable piece to be traded. By now you know the story. At the beginning of the Winter Meetings it looked like the trade of Chapman to Los Angeles was a done deal. That was obviously before details of his recent domestic incident came out. Now Chapman seems completely untradable for a Reds team that is going nowhere next season.
If Chapman is found culpable in the MLB’s investigation, his trade value may plummet even further. Chapman went from one of the most desirable trade assets in all of baseball to one with the biggest question marks of any. Chapman now finds himself stuck on a Reds team that is going nowhere, with a bad reputation among most of the other 29 MLB teams. It is likely that Chapman will still be traded at some point this offseason, but he has a lot of work to do to repair his reputation both before and after that happens. Either way, this week could have gone a lot better for one of the best closers in baseball.
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