Chapman Situation: Contrasting Reports and Why It's Good for the Mets

First off, according to Clark Spencer of the Miami Herald on twitter, it looks like internally the Marlins have conceded that they will be unable to sign Aroldis Chapman. This would then put the front running Blue Jays and Angels even further ahead in the race to sign the potential stud, though the Red Sox still seem to be in the mix.

After the report from a few days ago suggesting that Chapman is only a few days away from signing, and another from Buster Olney saying both the Mets and Yankees are out on Chapman, it's looking more and more like the Angels and Blue Jays are jockeying for position, with the Red Sox deeper back in the race.

However, there have been conflicting reports this morning about the Angels position on Chapman. Ken Rosenthal on twitter says the angel are "trying like crazy" to sign Chapman. Meanwhile Tim Brown quotes an Angels source as saying that they "aren't in deep" for Chapman.

It'll be interesting to see how this one plays out, but as a Mets fan the idea of him being interested in three teams, and none of them being in the National League, let alone the NL East is nice to hear.

Also, in a post for Metsblog yesterday Matthew Cerrone makes a good point about Chapman, saying that the Mets being out of the running is a good thing because it gives them a few years to evaluate his talent on a major league level and then when his initial contract is up, and he's still in his mid-twenties, they can jump back into play on him if he becomes the ace that some think he will be. I cannot argue with that logic, no matter how nice it would be to make a big splash on the pitching front this offseason.