Aroldis Chapman’s Amazing 2014

Sep 11, 2014; Cincinnati, OH, USA; Cincinnati Reds relief pitcher Aroldis Chapman (54) throws against the St. Louis Cardinals in the ninth inning at Great American Ball Park. The Reds won 1-0. Mandatory Credit: David Kohl-USA TODAY Sports

By the rankings, Aroldis Chapman was the seventh best closer in 2014, but the numbers were way better than that.  In fact, some of the stats Chapman but up this year are some of the best baseball has even seen.

Chapman does one thing very, very well; he gets strikes. He out performed every other closer, including the immortal Craig Kimbrel, in the art of strike throwing in the 2014 season. Three numbers Aroldis Chapman achieved jump off the statistics pages.

• 17.67 – Aroldis Chapman struck out 17.67 batters per nine innings in 2014. You read that right, 17.67. This is almost three batters per nine innings over the second guy on the list and three and a half over Kimbrel and Kenley Jansen. A K/9 of nine is very good, Chapman’s K/9 was almost twice that.

• 52.5% – This is an amazing stat. Chapman struck out 52.5% of all batters he faced in 2014. This is the highest k% ever, crushing Craig Kimbrel’s historic strikeout percentage of 50.2%. No one was close to this in 2014. The second best k% was Andrew Miller at 42.6%, just about ten points lower.

• 20% – Swinging strike rate is one of my favorite stats in baseball. As you may have guessed, it’s the percentage of time that a pitcher gets a batter to swing and miss. This is yet another stat where Aroldis Chapman led the league. He has a swinging strike rate of 20% in 2014. One in every five pitches he threw was a swing and miss.

These are amazing stats that don’t seem to be getting as much attention as I think they should. Craig Kimbrel was the talk of baseball after 2012, and Aroldis Chapman does not seem to be getting anywhere near as much attention.

Some of it may be due to the fact that Aroldis Chapman threw around ten less innings than most closers. Chapman, of course, took a line drive to his face and missed a chunk of the early season. Add in those innings and Chapman may have been the best ranked closer in 2014.

Saves are an unpredictable stat. When drafting closers it’s best to look at who has the job and who has great strikeout stuff. No one had better strikeout stuff than Chapman in 2014. I would expect this to continue into 2015, maybe with some minor regression simply due to how good his 2014 was. With no fluky injury to start the season, Aroldis Chapman should be the top closer off the board in 2015.