He’s been great, but are his best days behind him?
On Friday, Susan Slusser reported that the San Francisco Giants and agent Scott Boras have been in active discussions about extending 3B Matt Chapman.
The writeup concludes with two very reasonable points from Boras and Slusser herself which basically amount to this: the Giants will have to pay much, much more to sign Chapman long-term this offseason than they would’ve had to last offseason.
That’s partly a function of the season Chapman’s having this season versus last season but also that the Giants are one of the teams that simply has to overpay for anybody they sign in free agency. So, the markup for them will be severe. Of course, that assumes one very important thing that we’ll get to at the end.
For now, though, let’s examine the plusses and minuses of an extension. The plusses are undeniable:
The Giants retain a Gold Glove caliber defender at the hot corner
It doesn’t look like Chapman will snatch a Gold Glove in the National League with his work this season. He is absolutely a plus defender at the hot corner, but just looking at the SABR Defensive Index (SDI is a factor used in Gold Glove awarding), his +3.6 is good enough for only 5th behind Ryan McMahon, Nolan Arenado, Ke’Bryan Hayes, and Joey Ortiz. Still, I think I’m underselling this a bit because Chapman has already won four Gold Gloves and his athleticism is such that when I watch him play I think, “That’s a professional athlete.”
His Sprint Speed, as measured by Statcast, is 86th percentile (28.7 ft/sec) and he’s one of the fastest guys for his age. Arm strength, range, all well above average. His defense is what pushes him into that above average/great player territory
He hits the ball harder than most players
As of this writing, his 48% Hard Hit rate is ranked 30th in MLB, just a tenth of a percentage point ahead of Bryce arper, but also ahead of Yordan Alvarez, Heliot Ramos, Bryan Reynolds, and in the same league as Manny Machado (48.4%). Hitting the ball hard isn’t everything, but doing it consistently is the basis for how good things happen for a major league hitter.
He’s one of the most valuable players in baseball
Just by FanGraphs’ WAR valuation, his +4.0 is tied with Yordan Alvarez for 14th in MLB. He’s the #6 player in MLB (ranking qualified hitters), behind Francisco Lindor (6.5 fWAR), Shohei Ohtani (6.3), Elly De La Cruz (5.9), Ketel Marte (5.4), and Marcell Ozuna (4.0).
And, for whatever it’s worth, I love watching him play. He’s been a great addition to the team and he makes the Giants better. But, ultimately, that’s not enough!
The minuses for a Matt Chapman extension are pretty obvious, though:
He’ll be 32 next season
Usually, 30 is when baseball players hit a wall; but, there are exceptions, such as the truly great players. There are only 20 qualified hitters aged 32 or older in MLB this season, but only 4 of them are below 100 wRC+ (league average): Nick Castellanos (99), Jeff McNeil (97), George Springer (94), and Paul Goldschmidt (88).
102 players age 32 or older have had just 1 plate appearance, and only 40 of those have a 100 wRC+ or better.
Chapman suffered a finger injury last season (his age 30) which slowed him down (.240/.330/.424) but this year he’s basically replicated that while adding back in some power (.242/.330/.434).
But this is why the thinking about a player’s “prime” has changed over the years. Obviously, from a sabermetrics perspective, “value” always factors in a player’s cost, and so the players in arbitration or their free agent years are inherently “less valuable” than younger players. It’s why you’re seeing more and more that a player’s “prime” is 24-27.
That, statistically, sometimes lines up, as is the case with Chapman: .255/.336/.503 in his age 24-27 seasons and .230/.324/.423 since (ages 28-31). Chapman surviving and thriving into his 30s is a sign that he’s worth continued work, but he’s gone from a hitter who’s 20% better to the league average to 15% better and so a long-term deal would be paying for nothing but decline.
An extension would soak up a lot of the budget
After running the largest payroll in franchise history and getting a negative return, the Giants will probably fall back into the $165 million range in payroll as they try to extract as much value from a shrinking fandom that’s tired of the same boring baseball.
Farhan Zaidi or his successor will, once again, have to rebuild the major league roster after Snell, Ray, and Chapman opt out, Conforto and Canha leave, and the rest of the core is either old, injured, a question mark or probably at their ceiling on the offensive side (Flores, Murphy, Yaz, Wade Jr., Estrada, Lee, Ramos, Fitzgerald, Bailey); and, beyond Webb and a reliever or two, inexperienced or needing to be supplemented on the pitching side.
If the trio of opt outs opt out, the Giants will have about $89.5 million in contracts charged against the Competitive Balance Tax ($80.42 million in real money), so, they’d have enough money to give Chapman a healthy extension — say, closer to the $24 million AAV he probably sought this past offseason or something in the 6/$160 million range — but they’d still have a lot of work to do to rebuild the roster.
But maybe the Giants won’t take such a bit step back on payroll…
The Evan Longoria deal is still fresh in ownership’s minds
I whined and moaned all offseason when the Giants were rumored to be in on Matt Chapman because of what happened with Evan Longoria. A healthy, productive player until the moment he signed with the Giants. Sure, the team did get some value out of the deal, but it was still a disappointment. He hit .251/.312/.438 in 477 games (1,818 PA) across five seasons with the Giants, which began in his… age-32 season.
Are the Giants still shaken by Bobby Evans’ various whiffs that put the team in a financial and competitive gridlock? I think so. Financial failures feel worse than on-field successes when the job is to make money. 2024 was a momentary step into big financial commitment that they now have the opportunity to retreat from. Matt Chapman didn’t put the Giants over the top, and now they’ll spend the offseason regrouping and getting ready to be competitive in 2027 or 2028.
Even with the “it’s not my money” belief system, I’m not sure a Matt Chapman extension with the Giants is great for Matt Chapman. Unless he doesn’t mind missing the postseason for the next few years. Maybe he can stick around and serve as the veteran backup for the team’s first round exit in 2028 or 2029.
The Giants could really use Matt Chapman if they think they’ll be more competitive in 2025. They were finally able to bring a guy for a season who they’d like to keep around beyond that. When they traded for Kris Bryant and then let him go at season’s end, you can look at his Rockies career and understand why they went that route; therefore, we can assume from the chatter here that the Giants project him to provide value going forward. They can’t really replace him in the aggregate anyway, not with their internal options.
On the other hand, how many teams will pursue him this offseason? This is the problem with the modern game. It’s hard to say. Every year, there are 10-12 teams that simply aren’t trying, 5-6 that are trying, 2 that are really trying, and the rest are medium trying/hoping it all works out. Alex Bregman will be a free agent at the end of the year, and it could be the case that the Astros consider Chapman a fine fallback option. Maybe a Max Muncy error that leads to a 1st round exit compels the Dodgers to pursue the Southland native.
This past offseason, the Giants were committed to improving at a specific price. It’s clear by now that there’s no special lane of payroll any player could occupy. There is no “Aaron Judge budget” or a “Shohei Ohtani budget” on top of the Baseball Ops budget. It’s all one in the same because the team has so many investors. There’s an absolute ceiling on what gets spent on the players and coaches. That’s also a function of revenue, of course, which you’d like to imagine would increase if the on-field product improved. The Giants tried to make that happen this year and it didn’t.
The fallout of that could be intense (losing a generation of fans to simple disinterest, players running away from a dysfunctional organization, backwards development for key prospects) and letting Matt Chapman go because a model says he should only be paid $16-$20 million a year instead of $21-$24 million is probably pennywise and pound foolish in the competitive sense.
The entire basis of revamping the organization was to develop players who could step in as low-cost alternatives to pricey free agents. The Giants had 6 years to develop a Chapman alternative and couldn’t do it. They should probably just sign him to an extension and consider the hefty price tag a tax on not being able to build a team from the ground up.