“Shorty you’re my Angel, you’re my darling Angel”
No doubt somewhere in the Bronx or Tampa, Matt Blake is quietly singing Shaggy’s popular refrain to himself while watching video. YES Network’s Jack Curry
reported that the Yankees landed Angel Chivilli, a right-handed reliever, from the Colorado Rockies, sending Triple-A first baseman T.J. Rumfield in return to Denver. The Yankees have since confirmed the trade, with the team designating recent waiver claim outfielder Michael Siani for assignment as the corresponding 40-man roster move. Rumfield had been with the organization since being traded from the Phillies in December 2021 for Nick Nelson, but he had topped out at Scranton and Ben Rice firmly passed him on the first base depth chart.
Immediately looking at Chivilli, the 23-year-old has yet to post positive value in The Show since coming up in June 2024. He notched a 7.06 ERA and 6.03 FIP last year in 43 appearances, “good” for a -0.7 fWAR. That’s not MLB-caliber!
Still, you can kind of figure out the play here. Chivilli will sit 97 mph with his four-seam fastball, and that will play in any bullpen if you can command it. While he did manage a ground-ball rate over 50 percent last year, which is good, command of that fastball needs to be one of the first things for pitching coach Matt Blake to work on:
You can’t throw fastballs there no matter what ballpark you play in, but 97 on the black becomes quite nasty. Fixing that fastball location is job no. 1, and probably the overall key to making Chivilli a real weapon.
Job no. 2 though might actually be a little easier. One of the problems with pitching at Coors Field is the thin air reduces the amount that pitches break, and Chivilli throws a real hard slider at 90 mph and notched a 42-percent whiff rate on his changeup last year.
Simply moving closer to sea level should help those pitches break more, and all of a sudden the Yankees have a 24-year-old with multiple secondary offerings.
None of this is destiny, the work needs to get done, and even then young pitchers shatter all the time. Still, you can see why Angel Chivilli is a tempting project for a pitching lab that’s seen as much success as Blake’s has, and he immediately becomes one of the more intriguing players to watch in spring training with spots in the big-league bullpen seemingly available.
