Dusty Baker defends Aroldis Chapman: ‘He’s a heck of a guy’

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Dusty Baker is the manager of the Washington Nationals now, but it wasn’t too long ago that he held the same position with the Cincinnati Reds and spent a lot of time with relief pitcher Aroldis Chapman.

As such, Baker defended Chapman on Tuesday at the Winter Meetings, amid a controversy surrounding the closer. On Tuesday, hours after he was reportedly traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers, Yahoo Sports obtained a police report that said Chapman “choked” his girlfriend during an October argument at his Miami-area home, then fired eight gunshots in his garage. MLB is now investigating the incident under its new domestic violence policy and the trade to L.A. is reportedly on hold.

[Related: Police report: Aroldis Chapman allegedly fired gunshots, ‘choked’ girlfriend in domestic incident]

Chapman’s attorney, Jay Reisinger, denied the “facts as portrayed.” The Reds had no comment. But Baker fielded questions on the subject during his Q & A session here, along with topics such as how he views the Nats roster and how he thinks Barry Bonds will do as the Miami Marlins’ hitting coach. It’s the Chapman comments, though, that are getting the most attention.

Here’s the transcript of the relevant parts:

Q. Dusty, you had Aroldis Chapman when he broke into the majors. What was that process like? Were you surprised by the report?
DUSTY BAKER: I don’t believe reports. Who knows why? I’m not one to judge on how the whole thing happened.

Q. What do you know about the guy?
DUSTY BAKER: Oh, he’s a heck of a guy. I mean, a heck of a guy. I’ll go on record and say I wouldn’t mind having Chapman. No, no, he is a tremendous young man with a great family, mom and dad, and what he went through to get here and what his family had to go through to get here. I was with him through the whole process. There was a couple times when I had to stop him from quitting or going back to Cuba because he was lonely for his family. So I went through a lot of stuff with Chapman. I got nothing but love for the young man.

Q. Were you surprised by — I don’t know how much you read about the allegations.
DUSTY BAKER: I didn’t read it.

Q. Are you surprised that this popped up?
DUSTY BAKER: I don’t read most of the stuff you guys write. No, I don’t.

Q. I believe you. I didn’t know if you heard anything.
DUSTY BAKER: I heard it from my son. I mean, who’s to say the allegations are true, number one. And who’s to say what you would have done or what caused the problem.

Q. Dusty, do you believe that it’s a good thing that baseball now has a domestic policy?DUSTY BAKER: Yes.

Q. Domestic violence policy?
DUSTY BAKER: Yeah. I think it’s a great thing. I mean, I got a buddy at home that’s being abused by his wife. So I think this policy needs to go further than the player. I think the policy should go to whoever’s involved. Sometimes abusers don’t always have pants on.

I think we need to get them both in a room and try to come up with something. It’s a bad situation. That’s the first thing my momma told me when I was a kid. Don’t hit a woman, even my sister. Man, I was like you better leave me alone before I tell my momma.

It’s a bad situation. I learned that young, but a lot of people maybe didn’t learn that.

There’s a lot to process there, starting with the “Heck of a guy” comment. You have to figure MLB officials, who recently enacted the domestic violence policy in question hoping to escape the type of scrutiny the NFL has gotten in recent years, can’t be too excited to see all that from one of its managers.

It wasn’t the only questionable thing that Baker, 66, said in his media session either. Here’s another quote, about his conversations with Nats GM Mike Rizzo about the team’s roster construction.

Q. Dusty, you’ve talked to Mike and people in the front office, is there anything that you’ve specifically said that you think you’d like to have on a roster that you don’t necessarily have at the moment?
DUSTY BAKER: Yeah. You’re always in need of left-handed pitching, left-handed hitting, and in need of speed. I think that’s the number one thing that’s missing, I think, in the game is speed. You know, with the need for minorities, you can help yourself — you’ve got a better chance of getting some speed with Latin and African-Americans. I’m not being racist. That’s just how it is.

It’s worth noting that the Nats have a young, athletic and speedy shortstop named Trea Turner, who figures to big part of their future — and happens to be white.

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Mike Oz is the editor of Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @MikeOz