Matt Chapman Is Mashing His Way To A Massive Payday

From 2018-19, the short list of baseball’s best all-around players would’ve unequivocally included then-Athletics third baseman Matt Chapman. The 2014 No. 25 overall pick graduated from top prospect status to everyday big league third baseman in the second half of the 2017 season, and by 2018 he’d thrust himself into the fringes of the American League MVP conversation. Chapman finished sixth in AL MVP voting in 2018 and seventh in an All-Star 2019 season. He batted a combined .263/.348/.507 with 60 home runs between those two seasons, winning Gold Gloves at third base each year. Chapman ranked eighth among all position players with 12 Wins Above Replacement from 2018-19, per FanGraphs.

The A’s had a star third baseman on their hands and were seeing a young core that included Chapman, Matt Olson, Marcus Semien, Frankie Montas, Sean Manaea, Chris Bassitt and Ramon Laureano blossom into the foundation of a perennial contender. That group never advanced beyond the ALDS but did respectively win 97, 97, 34 and 86 games in 2018-21 before the front office tore things down in the 2021-22 offseason as Athletics ownership embarked on a Rachel Phelps-esque plan to push the team out of Oakland.

Part of the reason the A’s missed the postseason in that 86-win 2021 campaign was undoubtedly that Chapman had taken a step back in production following 2020 hip surgery. That’s not to pin the team’s playoff miss solely on the star third baseman, of course, but Chapman’s production dipped in 2020 as his strikeout rate soared to 35.5% while he played through tendinitis and a torn labrum in his hip. His 2021 campaign saw Chapman post a career-worst .210/.314/.403 batting line with a 32.5% strikeout rate — a far cry from the MVP-caliber output he flashed in 2018-19.

Though they were selling at a low point, Oakland still traded Chapman to the Blue Jays amid that 2021-22 offseason teardown, receiving top pitching prospect Gunnar Hoglund, infielder Kevin Smith, left-handed starter Zach Logue (whom they lost on waivers the following winter) and left-handed reliever Kirby Snead. Chapman’s first year in Toronto was solid but still nowhere close to his previous heights; he played top-shelf defense, as always, but his .229/.324/.433 batting line (117 wRC+) was good — not great. He swatted 27 home runs and succeeded in lowering his strikeout rate back beneath the 30% level, but it still sat at a well above-average 27.4%.

Chapman was a good player, to be sure, but from 2020-22 he hit .221/.314/.432. His plus power (64 homers, .211 ISO in 1395 plate appearances) and standout defense still made him a valuable, above-average regular at third base, but he no longer looked like the budding superstar he did during that 2018-19 peak — at least… not until 2023.

We’re just six weeks into the season, but Chapman has not only rebounded substantially from that 2020-22 downturn, he’s eclipsed even his peak levels of production thus far. Through his first 153 trips to the plate, Chapman is hitting .338/.425/.579 with five home runs. His 17 doubles are already more than he hit in the entire 2021 season. The strikeout rate that spiked north of 30% and sat at 27.4% a year ago is down to 25.5%, with reason to believe it could improve further.

Chapman’s 9.7% swinging-strike rate and 25.5% chase rate on pitches off the plate are both markedly better than the respective league averages of 10.9% and 31.4%. That doesn’t guarantee his strikeout rate will come down, but chasing bad pitches and whiffing less often than the league-average hitter should, in theory, eventually push his strikeout rate south of the league average.

Beyond the gains in strikeout rate and contact rate, Chapman is simply decimating the ball when he puts it into play. No one in baseball has a higher average exit velocity than Chapman’s 95.3 MPH mark, and his ludicrous 28.7% barrel rate is the best in MLB by an enormous margin of six percentage points. Aaron Judge is second at 22.7%, and there are only six total hitters in MLB at 20% or higher. An astonishing 67% of Chapman’s batted balls have left the bat at 95 mph or more.

Given the authority with which Chapman is hitting the ball, it’s actually a bit surprising he’s only connected on five home runs. His launch angle is right in line with his 2018-19 levels, and he’s hitting the ball in the air more often than he did in his previous peak years. After hitting a fly-ball in 41.3% of his plate appearances in 2018-19, Chapman is at 47.9% in 2023. A smaller percentage of those fly balls are of the infield variety (8.9% versus 15.9%), too. He’s curiously seen just 11.1% of his flies become home runs this year, compared to the 16.6% rate he enjoyed during his career with Oakland. That’s despite hitting the ball harder now and playing in a more homer-friendly venue; it stands to reason that Chapman’s home run output will be on the upswing sooner than later, provided he maintains this quality of contact.

Maintaining this pace, of course, will be difficult to do. Chapman’s clearly enjoying some good fortune right now, evidenced by a massive .449 average on balls in play. He’s already begun to see some regression, hitting .206/.308/.265 in 39 plate appearances since the calendar flipped to May. That dip in production is attributable not only to a drop in his BABIP, but more concerningly a spike in his strikeout rate. We’re looking at a small sample within a small sample, and the endpoints are admittedly arbitrary, but Chapman has fanned in exactly one-third of his plate appearances this month.

It was never reasonable to expect Chapman, a career .240/.329/.469 hitter entering the season, to sustain a batting average in the high-.300s, of course. But he’s regularly shown an ability to make high-quality contact in the past, so the big thing to keep an eye on with him as he approaches his first trip to free agency at season’s end was always going to be his contact rates.

If Chapman can avoid allowing his recent uptick in whiffs to snowball, then a return to peak levels or even the establishment of a new peak output is firmly in play. He’s still walking at an excellent 11.8% clip, after all, and his glovework at third base remains well-regarded. Statcast currently has him at one out below average but also tabs him in the 83rd percentile in terms of arm strength. He’s been credited with five Defensive Runs Saved already, and he’s sporting a 3.1 Ultimate Zone Rating. To date, Chapman has only made two errors this season.

His ability to sustain his elite contact and avoid reverting to his bloated strikeout rates over the next five months will be particularly telling. While Chapman once looked like he’d be the third-best free agent at his own position, the equation has changed substantially. Both Rafael Devers and Manny Machado signed long-term extensions to keep them in Boston and San Diego, respectively, leaving Chapman as the clear No. 1 third baseman on the market.

At this rate, however, Chapman won’t be just the clear top option at third base — he looks like he’ll be far and away the best position player on the market (excluding two-way phenom Shohei Ohtani, who’s in a free-agent tier unto himself). The upcoming free-agent class is utterly devoid of impact bats. Teoscar Hernandez, a resurgent Cody Bellinger, a somewhat resurgent Joey Gallo, and Hunter Renfroe look like the top bats who’ll be available. There’s still some time for that to change — a torrid summer from Javier Baez or Josh Bell could alter the calculus, for instance — but right now the market for position players is decidedly bleak.

When we were first kicking around thoughts and ideas for the initial installment of our 2023-24 Free Agent Power Rankings, MLBTR owner Tim Dierkes floated the idea of Chapman surpassing a $200MM guarantee. That was on April 4. The number felt jarring and unrealistic, and he received plenty of pushback on the idea due to Chapman’s hip surgery, uptick in strikeouts and general downturn in production since 2020.

Just a few weeks later, that type of contract feels far, far more plausible. Chapman has been the best hitter in baseball for nearly a quarter of the season, and the market surrounding him will be among the thinnest in recent memory. Perhaps that’ll lead to an uptick in trade activity throughout the league, but for teams looking to pad their roster without depleting the farm system (and without spending half a billion dollars on Ohtani), Chapman currently looks like he’ll be the best bet. Add in his defensive prowess and the fact that he won’t turn 31 until late next April — plus last year’s spike in ultra-long, CBT-skirting contracts — and it increasingly looks like Chapman and agent Scott Boras will be in prime position to break the bank.