Aroldis Chapman Changes Agents

Reds closer Aroldis Chapman has changed agents by moving to Relativity Baseball, per Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports (via Twitter). Chapman had been represented by Hendricks Sports.

For Chapman, 26, the move comes at an important time for the contractual side of his career. He earned $5MM this year after opting into arbitration. That will no doubt happen again next year, and Chapman will be in for a significant raise after racking up 36 saves over 54 innings. Though those totals were limited by his DL stint to the start the year, the remainder of Chapman’s numbers — a 2.00 ERA, an absurd 17.7 K/9 (against 4.0 BB/9), and an equally ridiculous 3.5 H/9 — will support a nice new payday.

And that’s only the starting point for the southpaw fireballer, who is currently set up to become a free agent after the 2016 season. While that is a long way off for a reliever, he already has a hefty earning base and will cost a pretty penny to buy out ahead of time. Craig Kimbrel signed a four-year, $42MM deal (including an option year) entering his first arb-eligible season.