No take-backs this time.
Unlike the Dodgers, the Yankees were aware of the risks in acquiring Aroldis Chapman from the Reds. Brian Cashman so much as acknowledged them.
Which means if you traded for Andrew Miller in a keeper league recently, you may want some take-backs of your own.
It's not a given he's out of the closer role, of course. You could make the case he's actually a safer ninth-inning option than Chapman, given the latter's occasional control lapses. But as was the case when Chapman looked like he was joining Kenley Jansen in the Dodgers bullpen, a top-five Fantasy reliever is now something significantly less, and given that he doesn't have the same cachet as Chapman and is reportedly not so attached to the closer role, Miller seems to me to be the odd man out.
And his loss is a significant one for Fantasy Baseball as a whole. Taking his place in the ninth inning for a presumably bad Reds team will likely be either J.J. Hoover, who has all of Chapman's control issues with none of his electricity and has failed as a fill-in closer in the past, or Jumbo Diaz, who might be a little more exciting for Fantasy purposes but also had a 4.18 ERA and 1.26 WHIP last year.
Tony Cingrani and Brandon Finnegan are two other possibilities of some notoriety, but the fact is any of these choices would rank down there with David Hernandez and Steve Cishek as far as Fantasy options go. The position just doesn't shake out the same way without Miller at the top.
And hey, maybe Miller will still get his chance at the start of the year. We don't know how Chapman's confrontation with his girlfriend this offseason is going to impact his availability under MLB's new domestic violence policy, but any chance he got would likely be short-lived and, of course, at the expense of Chapman's value.
