The Yankees and Rockies have agreed to a deal that will send reliever Angel Chivilli from Denver to the Bronx in exchange for minor league first baseman T.J. Rumfield, reports Jack Curry of the YES Network.
Chivilli is a hard-throwing 23-year-old righty who has shown an aptitude for missing bats and generating grounders but has yet to find consistent success in the majors. He averaged 97.1 mph on his four-seamer this past season and boasts an outstanding 14.4% swinging-strike rate in his young career, and he’s limited walks at a solid 8.1% clip. However, a penchant for serving up the long ball have undercut those swing-and-miss capabilities and otherwise solid command so far; Chivilli has served up an average of 1.99 homers per nine frames in each of his two partial MLB seasons.
Despite that big swinging-strike rate and a healthy 32.3% opponents’ chase rate on pitches off the plate, Chivilli comes to the Yankees with a below-average 17.4% strikeout rate in his career. His opponents have posted an awful 78.4% contact rate against Chivilli’s pitches that fall within the strike zone — league average in 2025 was 85.4% — but he’s put himself at a disadvantage by falling behind in counts far too often. Chivilli’s career 56.9% first-pitch strike rate (55.6% in 2025) is considerably lower than the 62% league average.
It bears mentioning that Chivilli has struggled more at Coors Field than on the road, though his ERA in both settings (7.06 at home, 5.03 on the road) is sub-par. He’s generated enormous swinging-strike rates on both his changeup (26.3%) and slider (23.4%) but struggled to miss bats with his four-seamer he threw in 2025 or the sinker he threw in 2024.
Though the bottom-line results haven’t been there yet, pitchers with Chivilli’s blend of velocity, command, ground-balls and raw bat-missing ability (even if it hasn’t manifested in big strikeout totals yet) are hard to come by. If the Yankees can coax some more swing-and-miss from one of his heaters and/or get him to throw first-pitch strikes with more frequency, there’s potential for Chivilli to develop into a high-quality late-inning option. He also has a minor league option remaining, so he’s someone the Yanks can send to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre for further refinement if he doesn’t win a bullpen job in spring training.
Chivilli is controllable for at least five more seasons, which adds to his appeal. If he spends any notable time in the minors this year, the Yankees could push that to six full seasons. Chivilli currently has 1.036 years of big league service time, meaning he’ll need to spend 136 days on New York’s major league roster or injured list to remain on track for free agency following the 2030 season. If he spends about one-third of the season in the minors, that free agency timeline would be pushed back to the 2031-32 offseason, though he’d then project as a Super Two player who’d be arbitration-eligible four times rather than the standard three.
More to come.
