With third baseman Matt Chapman and shortstop Marcus Semien, the left side of the Athletics’ infield is among the most productive in baseball. The fact that the two combine to make less than $6MM (almost all of which belongs to Semien) only adds to their appeal from the low-budget Athletics’ perspective. But their days of earning relatively meager salaries might not last for much longer. Both players are candidates for contract extensions, though Semien will reach free agency after next season if nothing comes together between him and Oakland in the meantime.
To this point, the A’s haven’t handed out a longer or richer contract than the six-year, $66MM extension they signed third baseman Eric Chavez to entering the 2004 campaign. They now have a new standout at the hot corner in Chapman, a Scott Boras client who could eventually unseat Chavez as the recipient of the biggest deal in team history. It’s “believed” the Athletics are considering making Chapman an offer for longer than the one Chavez signed 15 years ago, Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle reports.
Fortunately for the Athletics, there’s no imminent danger of losing Chapman. The 26-year-old isn’t even slated to reach arbitration for the first time until after 2020, and once he does, he’ll still be controllable for three seasons. Nevertheless, though, the A’s may want to get out in front of the arbitration process with Chapman. After all, he has burst out as one of the most valuable players in the sport over the past couple seasons, combining defensive virtuosity with marvelous offense.
Dating back to last year, his first full season in the majors, Chapman has slashed .267/.347/.506 (130 wRC+) with 51 home runs in 1,116 plate appearances. His 10.7 fWAR in that span ranks seventh among all position players, putting him just behind Nationals third baseman Anthony Rendon – a pending free agent who could collect a payday in the $150MM range in the offseason.
Considering the disparate points they’re at in their careers, Chapman obviously doesn’t have the earning power of Rendon. Depending on the length of the deal, though, Chapman could come within shouting distance of nine figures. MLBTR’s Jeff Todd posited last October that a seven-year, $80MM commitment might not have been out of reach on an extension, and that was before Chapman’s second straight overwhelmingly successful season.
Semien, 29 next month, has joined Chapman in emerging as an integral Athletic in the past couple years. By FanGraphs’ wRC+ metric, Semien was a slightly below league-average offensive producer from 2013-18, but the former White Sox infielder has found another gear this season. He’s hitting .273/.359/.469 (122 wRC+) with 19 HRs through 551 trips to the plate. Between his improved offense and quality defense, Semien has accounted for a personal-best 4.6 fWAR thus far. He’ll absolutely earn a solid raise in arbitration during the winter, but perhaps the Athletics will lock him up before it comes to that. Having just switched representation last week, he told Slusser his goal is to stick with the A’s for the long haul.
“That’s always been a big want for our family,” Semien said. “We’re extremely happy living here year round — that’s what anyone would want. And this team is such an amazing group to be around. Everyone talks about how bad the stadium is but when you have a group of guys you enjoy being around, that doesn’t matter.”
Oakland previously tried to extend Semien at the beginning of the 2017 season, when he would’ve come much cheaper. But the club wasn’t willing to match the six-year, $25MM guarantee the White Sox awarded shortstop Tim Anderson around the same time, according to Slusser. No agreement materialized as a result, and that may not change going forward, as Slusser writes “it’s hard to imagine” the A’s giving Semien a contract worth that much more than Chavez’s. It seems a long-term accord for Chapman is the bigger priority for the team.
New stadium coming in 23-24 opt out of TV deal in 2023 the team really should be able to lock up most of the core if they want. John Fisher has deeper pockets then almost all other owners as shown by them being the first team in forever to privately fund the new park. They should have the money to spend to keep it together.
Chapman also talked about how KD signing a extension earlier this year were the types of signals he is looking for to be willing to sign a deal, so signing Simien helps resign Chapman. I would say those two and Olson are the obvious ones to look at.
The team has modest payroll commitments next year and almost none after so they have the space for a couple good extensions should be no problem. On top of that most of the years that long term deals would pay higher wouldnt be till the team was in the new park since players mostly get lower priced years till they are selling actual FA seasons.
There’s no stadium for 23-24!
The new ballpark is still on pace for 23-24 until it isn’t.
I’m on pace to eat 500 White Castle sliders.
I believe they are related. If you eat 500 White Castle sliders the A’s will 100% get their new ballpark built.
They announced the new park opening for the 2023 season when they announced it last fall and havent changed the timeline publicly, so 2022 should be the last year at the old digs. Of course these things dont always play out on time. Just look at the Chase center GSW were supposed to originally open for the 2017 season I believe, but building close to the bay can be complicated red tape wise so I was being conservative.
There’s been no announcement for even breaking ground, let alone opening the park. You might want to read the May release, because there’s a long road ahead legally. So your 2022-23 is outrageous. By the way do you even know how long it takes to build a stadium?
The “long road ahead legally” you speak of isn’t as long as it could have been. A lot of work has been done on the legislative side to get through much of the red tape that would make building a ballpark there difficult leading up to filing the Environmental Impact Report, which has either happened or will happen within the next few months.
A year for the EIR to get reviewed and the A’s to collect the money for the park, a year to clean up Phase 1 of the site and a year or two to build. It’ll more than likely end up being 2024, but the time frame isn’t that far off.
Expedited CEQA process for the ballpark was signed into law by the Governor last September. (Assembly voted 66-4, Senate voted 33-0)
Tax Infrastructure Financing and developmental clearances bills flew through the originating sides of the State legislature and already most of the way through the other with (*checks*) Assembly Bill 1191 (developmental clearances) receiving a _single negative vote_ (69-1) during the Assembly side of the process.
There were no other votes taken on the current bills that received *any* opposing votes.
Unfortunately Chapman agent is Boras. Who rarely signs extensions for his players unl;ess its at the top of the pay scale and no benefits for the team. A’s has approached Boras and he already said no at this time.
Fortunately Boras and Beane have a fairly healthy working relationship, even if they haven’t done much business in the past. That was mostly because the players Boras represents are either way too expensive (Harper) or don’t really have a long term place on the team (Moustakes, Hosmer).
Boras is in it to make sure his clients get paid to the best of their ability, but he has spoken very highly of the A’s in just about every podcast I’ve heard him on and in the last A’s Cast he was on he was pretty convinced an extension would get done eventually between the A’s and Chapman.
I’d extend Chapman and Olson ASAP before their price tags are out of reach. I’d also extend Laureano and Semien if they sign team-friendly deals. It would be wise to save some room in the budget for potential extensions of Murphy, Luzardo and Puk if any of them pan out.
Although I agree with you, knowing the A’s I know for a fact they will not try to lock them up right now.
Don’t forget Ramon Laureano, Matt Olson amongst the pre Arbitration guys.
The A’s will be the A’s…no extensions will happen unless benefits them.
The A’s will soon have a new stadium and TV deal in one of baseballs 3 biggest markets I think people are thinking of the old A’s when they will soon be operating very different.
I’d like to think you’re right, but the A’s ownership has shown time and again that all they care about is the profits they make from investing as little as possible into the team
Their payroll is rarely much higher than the redistributed funds they receive from the rest of the league
And after everything this ownership group has done over the years, I can’t believe they’ll ever privately fund a stadium!
It’s just another smokescreen to keep fans interested, just like it’s been for over a decade now
It’s nice how you don’t actually know what you’re talking about. A’s payroll has consistently been at the same percentage of their income as the rest of the league, and in this last year they get any revenue sharing, they got $8m.
Just about every single owner in the sport cares about profits. It’s a business. That’s how businesses work. You make an investment when the investment will make you money. That’s how investments work. That you allow yourself to believe that the only good investment is players when the organization has a much bigger problem on their hands shows how little you understand about the sport, business and economics as a whole.
In any case, if this is a smoke screen it’s a pretty damn big one. You don’t go out and hire one of the largest design firms in the world in BIG, THE ballpark design firm in H.O.K. and waste millions of dollars and countless hours passing laws through state legislation “just to keep fans interested.” That’s some tin foil hat type of thinking.
And relating your two criticisms of the organization together, do you really believe signing players to extensions the organization can’t pay for will get fans interested? It absolutely won’t. If the team isn’t good people will continue to not show up.
The ownership they currently have hasnt been the same people that owned the team in the early aughts. Lew Wolfe doesnt live hear anymore. While I agree somewhat even the last several years the team has expanded its payroll a little while contending. They also have a pretty mediocre TV deal they signed a long time ago. The team will increase its revenue a lot in 2023 with a new TV deal paying them anywhere close to what other large market teams on newer deals are getting. That date is set unlike the others, and with the market size of the Bay they should be making more then the payroll just from TV. LAD make 289M in a market thats not much larger Oak can easily get a deal for half that per season.
Sports team ownership isnt quite the same as other businesses. Yes owners may be stoked if the team makes some profit each year, but its more about breaking even. Owners make the profit when they sell. Look at what Loria payed for then sold the Marlins for. Stienbrenner bought the Yanks for 10M now they are worth what 5B. Buy a team hold then sell, even McCourt got cashed out fat off a Dodgers team that didnt make the playoffs in some of his final years.
And in John Fisher’s case he’s already made a profit of close to $900M. Bought the team for $150M or so, it’s worth close to $1B now. The A’s were in the red at the end of the year because they spent more money than they made, so he’d have been wise to try and find a buyer for the team then, if that’s what he intended to do.
Again, tin foil hat stuff. I don’t understand the paranoia.
Well, obviously. No team gives out extensions believing they won’t.
Semien is lucky the A’s didn’t match the Tim Anderson deal. He would have sold himself way short.
Semien also lost half of 2017 to a broken wrist and came back with almost no power to speak of after hitting 27 home runs in 2016.
You’d think that the Jurickson Profars of the world would be on the minds of clubs before handing out extensions… “By FanGraphs’ wRC+ metric, Semien was a slightly below league-average offensive producer from 2013-18, but the former White Sox infielder has found another gear this season.” Basing an extension on 2019 as opposed to ’13-’18 seems like you’d wind up with… well, another Jurickson Profar.
I don’t get the comparison. Profar never got an extension, and was only a starter 1 season.
That would be ignoring the fact that Semien has made slight improvements every year he’s been in the league… his breakout is no mirage (though the ball may have a slight influence). Profar literally had one good half with the bat in his career… Semien is also an above league average SS even with a below average batting line. (On profar though, I still think he’s fixable… he seems like he put too much pressure on himself early, got in his own head and has never been ever to snap out of it)
Strikeout rates and other things behind Simeins numbers stabilize fast enough to say he probably has taken a step forward. On D his numbers got world better once Chapman got called up so he could play closer to second then any other SS in baseball. The D stays real till Chappy leaves.
Only takes about 200 AB’s for K/BB to stabilize, with the notable exception usually being injury, which is entirely why Chapman has been striking out a lot more recently.
Matt Olson is batting .254-23-52 as a 25 year old, Matt Chapman is batting .253-25-65, Ramon Laureano .284-21-48 and Semien .273-19-55. All are great defenseman, if the As extend all of them, Manaea and Fiers are 100%, Luzardo and Puk are beasts, this is a Dynasty. I already believe this team can take home a ring next year.
Who cites average/homers/RBI when trying to show a guy is a good hitter 😐
I like the way you talk.
Rotation of
Luzardo
Montas
Puk
Manaea
Fiers
Holmes, Megden, Bassit, Kap, Jefferies is the depth not bad. Add in a lineup with 5 20+ HR guys and at least 8 that you can count on for 10. Plus Sean Murphy is a better catcher then anyone on the roster now.
I’d probably put Bassitt in the rotation before Puk next year. He’s actually been a very good pitcher this year, and a rotation of Manaea, Montas, Bassitt, Luzardo and Fiers is still really disgusting. With the exception of Luzardo that is a rotation that is established at the major league level.
Puk has the highest odds of becoming a true Ace so you need him to be in there. Bassitt is fine but probably close to as good as he will be. Also Bassitt has come in relief before so he fits as your swingman/6th starter I think.
Semien will be gone after 2020 and chapman will be traded by 2022. Thats my guess. I think they sign laureano and olson to extensions though. Also maybe pinder since he could come fairly cheaply. If chapman got injured, pinder would be the replacement. Mateo or nick allen will take over for semien. And they have eirman and davidson who theyve taken in last 2 drafts. Good tools, potentially plus defenders but major questions about hitting ability
Way to be optimistic. You must be one of those fans that goes to games and complains nonstop.
I’ll believe it when I see it. The a’s have always had money and refuse to spend it. Hell, they lost their revenue sharing because they don’t spend it and pocket it. It’s been 20 years of this. The A’s will always be the A’s.
Do you have proof that they pocket it? Because if there was any proof there would have been an investigation by now and there hasn’t. I’ve seen it mentioned by SF Chronicle writers, but nowhere else because it was a rumor started as a way to get their own fans to dump on the organization. Mission accomplished, I suppose. When your newspaper is “highly acclaimed” the weak willed will believe whatever you publish as fact.
The A’s only got revenue sharing as a bridge to a new ballpark, where after they could make their own money and no longer need the additional league generated income. They did actually need the additional income because the team doesn’t make a lot through ticket sales and their somewhat mediocre TV deal.
As I recall, the MLBPA grievance filed before last season that “the A’s aren’t trying to win and just pocketing money” was immediately laughed at by the league and quietly dropped.
And SF Chronicle tried to blow it up as a huge deal. It died just as quick.
Yeah it was laughable since they ended the season with a payroll right around the highest they have run since 2010 with the money they took on in trades and claims. Oak also I believe told MLBPA hey we offered Encarnacion money that winter but he didnt want it, same with Beltre the year he signed with Tex like 2012. Oak has been offering bigger deals to FA that havent been accepted. I think its smart they dont pay for SP on the FA market, and batters dont want to play in the Seum.
Matt Chapman, Cal State Fullerton Titans.