Aroldis Chapman is on the move.
The Royals dealt Chapman to the Rangers for left-handed pitcher Cole Ragans and 17-year-old outfielder Roni Cabrera, the team announced Friday, ending the fireballing reliever’s brief stint in Kansas City.
Chapman, whose 2.45 ERA is his best since his 2019 season with the Yankees, emerged as a popular trade target this season on the struggling Royals, who are 23-58 and have the second-worst record in the major leagues.
Texas, a breakout success this season, leads the AL West by five games and is moving to fortify its bullpen with this move, which is ranked 24th in the league with a 4.37 ERA.
Chapman has authored a resurgent season with renewed elite fastball velocity — his average fastball speed of 99.6 mph is his best mark since 2017.
The lefty reliever, who only has two saves this year but has been dominant in a late-inning role, striking out 16.26 batters per nine innings, will likely compete for late-inning chances with Rangers reliever Will Smith, who has 14 saves and a 2.73 ERA.
The Royals, who appear firmly out of contention for this season, optioned Ragans to Triple-A and assigned Cabrera to the Royals’ Dominican Summer League team.
Ragans, a 25-year-old lefty, has a 5.32 ERA in 64 ¹/₃ innings over his short major league career.
Cabrera, who was previously playing on the Rangers’ Dominican Summer League Team and is not on MLB.com’s Top 30 Rangers prospects, has a 1.089 OPS in 64 plate appearances this year.
Following seven seasons with the Yankees, in which Chapman had 153 saves, 453 strikeouts and a 2.94 ERA, he signed with the Royals last offseason on a one-year, $3.75 million deal.
His Yankees tenure reached an unceremonious end after he stumbled to a 4.46 ERA in 2022 and missed a team workout before the playoffs and subsequently was left off the roster.
Over 669 career innings, Chapman has a 2.47 ERA and 317 saves.