Aaron Boone responds to Aroldis Chapman's comments in best way possible for Yankees

If you've spent the last 24 hours or so wondering where on this planet Aroldis Chapman gets off claiming that the Yankees owe him an apology over how his time in New York ended, well, you're certainly not alone.

In case anyone needs a refresher: It was Chapman who — after a regular season in which he lost the closer's role to Clay Holmes and missed a month due to a leg infection from a tattoo gone bad — decided to skip a mandatory team workout ahead of the 2022 ALDS without telling anybody. And somehow he's indignant that Brian Cashman and Aaron Boone decided to leave him off the postseason roster, to the point where he apparently wouldn't be able to bring himself to play in pinstripes? "Rich" doesn't quite cover it.

Given just how brazen Chapman has been in his refusal to accept any kind of responsibility, you'd understand if Yankees brass decided to put their former closer on blast to the media. But when asked about the whole affair ahead of Friday's game against the Blue Jays, Boone hardly went fire and brimstone. Instead, he understood that the best revenge wasn't to meet Chapman on his level, but simply and calmly insist on the truth — while making clear that Chapman is the one living in an alternate reality here.

Aroldis Chapman's Yankees apology demand is absurd, but it doesn't need to be a story

"At the end of the day, he wasn't at the workout," Boone said, per Gary Phillips of the Daily News. "I made the decision based on a lot of things and thought to leave him off because I thought that was the right thing to do for our club at the time. Chappy apologized and, really, it's water under the bridge for me. I love Chappy. I have a really good relationship with him to this day, but the ending of the 2022 season is what it was. He wasn't there, and I made the decision that I didn't think it was best for him to come back at that point."

It's hard to ask for a better response here. Boone didn't give Chapman an inch, making clear that it was Chapman who failed to show up for (or even communicate with) his team — and that it was Chapman who felt compelled to apologize four years ago. But he also didn't say anything inflammatory that might extend this news cycle for another day or two. Because really, that's what Chapman wants, and it's a distraction the Yankees don't need right now.

Yes, there's some bitter irony in the fact that Chapman figures to be the best available option at New York's biggest position of need at the trade deadline. But let's be real: Cashman was never going to consider acquiring him even before this recent spat. There's simply too much baggage there, and too much of a reason not to trust a player who would no doubt require a ton of assets to land from Boston. With his team mired in last place, Chapman clearly wants attention, but the Yankees have better things to be focused on right now; there's nothing to be gained by a war of words here.

Boone seemed to understand that, and he calmly shut down any notion of an apology without insulting Chapman as a person or player (no matter how much he might deserve it). As much as Chapman's profile would look great in the eighth or ninth inning, New York will have plenty of other ways to bolster its bullpen this summer. The best way to respond here is with the old Don Draper meme: No, Aroldis, we don't think about you at all.

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