11:06am: The two teams officially announced the exchange. It’s a straightforward individual deal. The Yankees designated outfielder Michael Siani for assignment to open a 40-man roster spot.
10:45am: The Yankees and Rockies have agreed to a deal that will send relief Angel Chivilli from Denver to the Bronx in exchange for a major league first baseman TJ Rumfieldreports YES Network’s Jack Curry.
Chivilli is a solid 23-year-old who has shown the ability to miss bats and produce 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 a 14.4% swing rate in his young career, and has limited walks at a solid 8.1% clip. However, a penchant for delivering the long ball has limited those swing-and-miss skills and strong command so far; Chivilli averaged 1.99 homers per nine frames in each of his two MLB seasons.
Despite that high strikeout rate and a healthy 32.3% strikeout rate on pitches outside the plate, Chivilli comes to the Yankees with a below-average 17.4% career strikeout rate. Opponents have posted an abysmal 78.4% contact rate on Chivilli’s pitches that fall into the strike zone — the league average in 2025 was 85.4% — but he puts himself at a disadvantage by falling behind in the numbers far too often. Chivilli’s career 56.9% first strike rate (55.6% in 2025) is significantly lower than the league average of 62%.
It’s worth noting that Chivilli 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 lower. He produced great swing rates with his changeup (26.3%) and slider (23.4%) but struggled to miss bats with his four seamers in 2025 or the sinker he threw in 2024.
While the bottom-line results aren’t there yet, pitchers with Chivilli’s mix of speed, command, ground balls and the ability to miss the bat (even if it hasn’t been evident in big strikeout numbers) are hard to find. If the Yankees can coax some more swings and misses from one of his pitchers and/or get him to throw first-pitch strikes with more frequency, there’s a good chance Chivilli can develop into a high-quality late-inning option. He also has a minor league option remaining, so he’s someone the Yanks could send to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre for development if he doesn’t get a bullpen job in spring training.
Chivilli is manageable for at least five more seasons, which adds to his appeal. If he spends any significant time in the minors this year, the Yankees could push that to six full seasons. Chivilli currently has 1.036 years of major league service time, which means he would need to spend 136 days on the injured list to remain eligible for free agency following the 2030 season. If he spends about a third of the season in the minors, that free agency timeline would be pushed back to the 2031-32 offseason, though he would play as a Super Two player eligible for compensation four times instead of the usual three.
In exchange for that development project, the Rockies will acquire an intriguing 25-year-old first baseman. Rumfield was blocked in the Bronx by Ben Rice but he has a clear path to his first regular job in Colorado when he gets to work. Based on his recent minor league record, Rumfield has a good chance to do just that.
A 12th-round pick by the Phillies in 2021, Rumfield came to the Yankees in a trade that sent the righty. Nick Nelson and the hunter Donny Sands in Philadelphia. He spent the entire 2025 season with the Yankees’ top franchise in Scranton, hitting .285/.378/.447 with 16 home runs, 31 doubles, three triples, five stolen bases (seven attempts), a massive 11.9% walk rate and a 18.4% lower than average strikeout rate. Last year, Rumfield hit .292/.365/.461 with 15 homers and a similar average in 114 Triple-A games.
The left-handed hitting Rumfield is not yet on the 40-man roster. He went unselected in last month’s Rule 5 Draft despite being eligible. Baseball America ranked him 30th among Yankees prospects this offseason, noting that he has a lot of contact, is good at catching air and plays first base defensively. There was no way for him to play regular time in the majors with the Yankees, and he doesn’t have the defensive prowess to profile as a true bench option for them. However, with the Rockies, Rumfield will go into camp with a legitimate chance to win the starting job this spring.
Currently, he is 28 years old to download Troy Johnston and a permanently injured veteran Chris Bryant are among the group’s choices at first. Newly hired president of baseball operations Paul DePodesta recently declined to fully commit to Bryant in spring training when asked by Patrick Saunders of the Denver Post, saying only: “That will be up to our medical people.”
Johnston has plenty of experience in the corner outfield, so even if the Rockies want to give him a real shot at the big league roster — he has a solid Triple-A record with the Marlins organization — he could slide into a bench/designated hitting role if Rumfield takes the first base job.
Rumfield may not be a star in the making, but if he can handle a middle offense and glove work at first, he could be a seismic upgrade for a Colorado club that had the worst start of any team in MLB — on both sides of the ball. Colorado first basemen posted a .211/.268/.372 batting line in 2025. The result was a 62 wRC+ (38% worse than average in the area after ballpark weighting) and 15 points south of the 29th-ranked Giants. Former first rounder Michael Toglia averaged the Rockies in first base appearances last year but hit just .190/.258/.353 with a whopping 39.2% strikeout rate, -3 Defensive Runs Saved and -10 Outs Above Average in 88 games.
