Pittsburgh Pirates News: Aroldis Chapman Officially Signs

On January 22nd, it was reported by Francys Romero that standout reliever Aroldis Chapman would be signing with the Pittsburgh Pirates. This was followed up by multiple insiders also confirming the potential deal. Robert Murray, FanSided's very own, reported that the deal would be worth $10.5 million and would be for only 1 year.

However, as fans saw with the Martin Perez signing, sometimes deals take a little longer to process in the offseason. It took Perez over two weeks to officially sign with the team, leaving some worried that the deal was going to fall through. Turns out it was just a matter of scheduling and getting Perez to Pittsburgh to officially sign.

The same was most likely true for Chapman. While it was nearly 10 days ago that the report came out, there was no reason to be concerned. Nothing with the physical and nothing going on behind closed doors, just a simple roster transaction.

Speaking of which to make the deal official the team decided to designate for assignment outfielder Canaan Smith-Njigba. The outfielder who was a part of the Jameson Taillon trade, hit just .135 through 44 Major League at-bats. With the addition of Edward Olivares the outfield depth chart started to get crowded.

Still, a team will most likely make a claim on the young outfielder. While the subtraction of Smith-Njigba takes away some of the outfield depth, the addition of Chapman makes the bullpen that much deeper. The thought is that Chapman will slide into a high leverage role such as the 7th or 8th inning. Of course, David Bednar will close but the left-handed native of Cuba could fill in for him at times. The two actually spent some time together during the press release:

Many fans of the Pittsburgh Pirates have said that this is something they did not think they would ever see.

I am one of those fans, like them it just feels weird. However, that is the way of the industry anymore, it was pretty weird when Andrew McCutchen was a Yankee also. Hopefully, this higher-priced deal works out for the Pittsburgh Pirates.