While José Chávez returns home this off season, the rest of the world contemplates his future.
October 24, 2026 – The kid’s just 24 years old but back home in Santo Domingo, everybody knows his name. He’s José Chávez, the towering left hander, six-foot-seven, with the 100 Mile an Hour bola rápida. Even though he’s got the smooth face of youth, everyone calls him Dogface as he strolls down the gravel roads that lead to his family house. “Hoy, Dogface!” they call, and he waves back. “Mi hermano me dio el nombre,” he says. My brother gave me the name. He goes on to tell a story of when he and his brother Juan were playing in an old junkyard and came across a dead dog. “He said I looked just like the dog,” Chávez gives a slow smile that has as much discomfort buried inside it as it does humor on the out.
“My brother works making shoes now,” he says.
Yes, he’s still a kid, but there are a few miles on his gaze now—like he’s seen the future, and he’s not telling, which is a shame because the question on everyone else’s mind today is about just that future.
Does he have another step up left in him? Can that slider keep sliding, can the knuckle keep curving, and can that changeup change a little more? Can he be the ace that Yellow Springs so desperately needs?
In that light, while it’s the knuckle curve that makes Chávez’s repertoire so interesting, his performance arc is what has GMs, commentators and fans around the world buzzing. His entry into the league as a 22-year-old rookie was a bit rocky (7-15, 5.08 [4.01 FIP, 99 FIP-]). He hit a stride as a 23-year-old, though, going 10-7 with a 4.01 and dropping the FIP to a very nice 3.43 (86 FIP-). While his record evened out a bit last season (11-10), the ERA continued to drop to 3.63 (3.37 FIP, 83 FIP-). With the exception of his raw K-rate (which is still 8.8/9), all his rate stats have improved.
For the advanced stat lovers out there, here are his WAR numbers as a big leaguer: 1.6, 3.5, 4.3.
And, so, yes … while Chávez takes in the winter at home—eating his mother’s home cooking, playing sandlot with the boys, and seeing the local girls fawn over him and his projected $3M arbitration figure (a little spending cash never hurts the aura of the local boy done good)—the rest of the world is looking forward to seeing what next year’s numbers will look like.
“Not a clue,” he says later that night as we’re sitting in the back yard with his family.
The extended family is maybe fifty big. Uncles and Aunts and cousins and kids. They’re gathered here with him, eating a special pork barbecue in José Chávez’s honor. The air smells thick with smoke and music from a pair of tinny speakers Chávez’s uncle came over earlier to wire up. His youngest sister is playing a drum beat on a rusted metal can the family throws its garbage in, and a collection of the women stand around her, clapping to the beat and doing dance steps in the darkening evening. They’ve here tonight to be with Chávez now, to see him in the flesh rather than on a panel of glass or through the static of the radio. But you can sense a different barrier now. They each come and touch him, and it’s as if they’re touching a different beast, like in his absence he’s turned into something supernatural that they can’t possibly comprehend. They hear the number—three million—and it might as well be the Andromeda galaxy as far as they’re concerned.
But in the end, he’s still “Dogface” to them. He is now, anyway. You can feel that in the collective today, too. Despite their concern, he’s still their Dogface. As the sun sets and the food is served, I watch the gathering and I wonder if that will change after the $3 million, and after the $3 million after that, and after …
“I got no clue as to whether the numbers will get better,” he says after he’s put away enough dinner to make his mother happy. “I mean, sure I want them too. But it’s baseball. I figure if I think I know what’s going to happen, I’m just going to be wrong. All I can do is keep working, you know?”
“No escuchar a él,” his dad says to me as he’s sitting on a nearby chair of weather-beaten plastic, sipping beer and smiling with big white teeth. “Mi hijo ya es el mejor lanzador que jamás haya existido.”
I do the translation in my head. Don’t listen to him. My son is already the greatest pitcher who ever lived!
José Chávez’s laugh is real then. “Don’t listen to him,” he tells me. “He also tells everyone that Juan is the greatest cobbler in the whole of the Dominican.”
I nod, and make a note.
Then I excuse myself and go to search out Juan Chávez.
The strap on my sandal has been feeling loose and it’s begun to lose its sole. I can’t think of a better place on earth to get it patched up.
