Award season is one of the best stretches on the baseball calendar. The World Series trophy has been handed out, and the players who carried their teams for six months finally get recognized for it. For fans, one of the more fun parts of the week is finding out who cashed in on their contract incentives.
Incentives are a quiet but important part of how big-league deals get built. Baseball's labor agreement doesn't allow bonuses tied to statistics like ERA or home runs, so incentives usually come down to playing time and awards: innings pitched, games finished, plate appearances, All-Star selections and finishes in award voting. Players early in their careers rarely have them. Pre-arbitration salaries sit near the league minimum, and arbitration deals are usually simple one-year numbers.
The real room for creativity opens up in free agency and extensions, when an agent has leverage to write escalators into the contract. Chapman is a two-time MLB Mariano Rivera Reliever of the Year, so with a new award popping up, it provides another opportunity for an agent to get his client paid. That's exactly what Chapman's camp did when he signed his extension in August 2025, and it paid off on Wednesday.
How Aroldis Chapman's Reliever of the Year finish raised his Red Sox salary
The BBWAA handed out its first-ever Reliever of the Year awards this week, and Toronto's Louis Varland won the American League honor, with Chapman finishing fourth, ahead of Houston's Josh Hader. Under the terms of his deal, a fourth- or fifth-place finish is worth $250,000, so his 2027 salary rises from $13 million to $13.25 million, which is seemingly great news for Sox fans.
At 38, he gave the Red Sox another outstanding year out of the bullpen. He saved 35 games with an ERA under 2.00 across roughly 51 innings, and he did it despite a lat strain that sidelined him in September. Along the way he passed Hoyt Wilhelm for the most career strikeouts by a reliever and became the ninth pitcher in history with 400 saves.
What really stands out to is how he keeps evolving as a pitcher. In 2025, Chapman supposedly changed where he looked when throwing a pitch, and instead of nibbling on corners, started attacking hitters more aggressively. What resulted was a 6.6% walk rate which was a drastic change from his previous few years.
His walks crept up early in 2026, but in the second half he tightened things up and was around the zone more — posting a 1.80 ERA with only eight walks after the break. He also utilized a sinker more this year, which allowed him to mix his fastball shape and avoided hitters eliminating pitches against him.
The best news for Boston is that they do not have to worry about him going anywhere. Chapman reached 40 innings in August, which vested his 2027 option, and that new $13.25 million is a relatively small number on a Red Sox payroll with bigger decisions ahead. If Chapman keeps drinking from the fountain of youth, the Red Sox will be happy to pay every dollar of it.
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