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Giants Activate Matt Chapman, DFA Sergio Alcantara

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The Giants announced a series of roster moves this evening, headlined by the return of third baseman Matt Chapman from the injured list. Infielder Sergio Alcantara was designated for assignment to make room for Chapman on the active roster. Additionally, the Giants optioned right-hander Mason Black to Triple-A and recalled right-hander Tristan Beck.

Chapman, 32, has been sidelined for almost a month by a hand injury that left him with sprains in three fingers and bone bruises on each of those fingers. Prior to that injury the infielder was in the midst of a brilliant season at third base for the Giants with a .243/.360/.452 slash line across 65 games. The loss of Chapman’s bat from the lineup hurt for San Francisco, as they went on to lose 14 of the 23 games they played while he was injured. That’s left them buried in an NL West race that was quite close just a month ago while also putting them on the outside looking in when it comes to the NL Wild Card race. Fortunately, the return of Chapman to the lineup should be a huge boost to a Giants club that has not yet had the opportunity to bat him and Rafael Devers alongside each other in the same lineup.

Making room for Chapman on the roster is Alcantara, who made it into just one game with the Giants. He was selected to the roster just a couple of days ago to provide cover while Chapman, Casey Schmitt, and Christian Koss were all on the shelf while Tyler Fitzgerald battled a minor back issue. Though he went hitless during his lone game with the Giants, Alcantara’s value has never stemmed from his bat. He’s hitting just .206/.319/.252 even in the heightened offensive environment of Triple-A’s Pacific Coast League this year, and sports a career 70 wRC+ during his major league career. Despite that weak offensive production, the 28-year-old has gotten 193 games in the majors with the Tigers, Cubs, Diamondbacks, Padres, and Giants thanks to his slick work with the glove and any ability to cover needs anywhere on the infield. The Giants will have one week to either trade Alcantara or pass him through waivers, where he would have the choice to either accept an outright assignment or elect free agency if he goes unclaimed.

As for Black, he too made just one appearance in the majors with the Giants this year, throwing four innings of relief yesterday where he surrendered five runs (three earned) while striking out five in and walking none in a 11-2 loss to the Athletics. He’ll head back to Triple-A, where he has a 4.75 ERA in 15 appearances this year, as a depth option for the rotation or potential long man for the bullpen as needed. Returning to the bullpen in his place is Beck, who has generally impressed over the years with a 3.66 ERA and 4.16 FIP in 113 career MLB innings. His work this season has been less impressive, though it’s come in a sample of just 12 innings across six appearances.

Rafael Devers To Start Work At First Base With Giants

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The Giants held a press conference today to introduce Rafael Devers and one key question about his future in San Francisco was answered. The Giants plan to have him serve as the designated hitter but also as a first baseman going forward. He’ll start taking grounders in preparation for the position change in the next few days. Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports Bay Area was among those to relay the news.

“They’re the men in charge,” Devers said today, per Chris Cotillo of MassLive. “I’m here to play wherever they want me to play.”

It’s obviously a notable shift from where things stood with the Red Sox. Devers had been almost exclusively a third baseman coming into this year, though he has been considered a poor defender. Over the winter, the Sox were connected in rumors to third basemen like Nolan Arenado and Alex Bregman. Members of the Red Sox such as chief baseball officer Craig Breslow and manager Álex Cora downplayed the possibility of Devers being moved off the hot corner.

The Sox eventually signed Bregman, but even in the initial wake of that deal, the club didn’t firmly declare that Devers was done as a third baseman. “He’s a Gold Glove third baseman,” Cora said of Bregman in February. “He hasn’t played second base in the big leagues. I do believe he can be a Gold Glove second baseman, too.”

A few days later, Devers spoke to the media and was adamant about not moving. “It’s my decision,” he said at the time. “My position is third base. Whatever it is they want to do is what they want to do. But my position is third base.” He had apparently been promised he could be a long-term third baseman when signing his ten-year extension in 2023, though Cora dismissed that promise. “That was under Chaim,” Cora said, referring to previous CBO Chaim Bloom. The Sox fired Bloom late in 2023 and later hired Breslow to replace him.

As spring training went on, it became clear that the Sox intended to have Bregman at third, with Devers moved to a DH role. While Devers was clearly frustrated and reportedly considered asking for a trade, he eventually relented and accepted his fate. Whatever emotions he was feeling were not impacting his performance, as Devers has hit .272/.401/.504 for a 148 wRC+ this year.

The situation with the Red Sox grew even more complicated in early May when first baseman Triston Casas suffered a season-ending knee injury. Devers taking up that spot seemed like a logical next step, as many subpar third basemen have successfully moved across the diamond over the years. Doing so also would have helped the Sox with positional logjams elsewhere. Outfield prospect Roman Anthony has been blocked in Triple-A for most of the season but an open DH spot would have helped the club find more playing time for him and others.

The Sox did indeed ask Devers to consider a move to first base, but Devers refused and also seemed offended that he was even asked. “They talked to me and basically told me to put away my glove, that I wasn’t going to play any other position but DH,” Devers said of the conversation during spring training. “So right now, I just feel like it’s not an appropriate decision by them to ask me to play another position.” He went on to seemingly take a shot at the club’s brass in the process: “Now I think they should do their job essentially and hit the market and look for another player (to play first base). I’m not sure why they want me to be in between the way they have me now.”

The Sox went on to try other options at first, including utility players like Romy González and Abraham Toro. Rookie Kristian Campbell also started some pre-game work at first, though he has yet to appear there in actual game action.

All of this drama seemed to lead to this weekend’s shocking trade which sent Devers to the Giants. Back on May 10th, it was reported that Breslow, owner John Henry and CEO Sam Kennedy all flew to Kansas City to meet with Devers and discuss the situation as the Sox played the Royals. In the wake of the trade, Giants president of baseball operations Buster Posey said that he had been discussing the deal with the Sox for three to four weeks. In other words, not long after that Kansas City meeting.

Breslow also spoke to the media yesterday and said that “It’s the willingness to step up and sacrifice at times of need and essentially do whatever is necessary to help the team win,” speaking broadly about successful teams he’d been a part of during his playing days. “I think that’s the identity, this relentless pursuit of winning, that we’re looking for.”

Looking at how Devers fit onto the roster in San Francisco raised similar questions to his time in Boston. Matt Chapman is currently on the injured list but is one of the best defensive third basemen in the league and is under contract through 2030. The club’s top prospect is Bryce Eldridge, a first baseman who recently got promoted from Double-A to Triple-A.

Given the standoff in Boston, it was fair to wonder where Devers fit but now there’s an answer. Eldridge will continue playing first base in the minors, per Pavlovic, though Devers will learn the position in the meantime. If Eldridge succeeds as a major leaguer, the two could share the roster for a long time. Devers’ contract goes for eight more years after the current season. Eldridge will be under club control until he accrues six season of service time.

Eldridge might still be the long-term first baseman and Devers the long-term DH, though at least having Devers as a viable player at that position is obviously valuable. It will provide more flexibility if Eldridge ever needs a stint on the injured list during his career, or perhaps doesn’t pan out. As heralded as he is, even the top prospects don’t always succeed when promoted to the majors.

The shift in tone from Devers will naturally lead to questions about why. It’s possible that he bore a grudge against the Sox about the broken promise or perhaps didn’t like the way they went about communicating their plans to him. Perhaps he just wants to start this new opportunity on the right foot, as opposed to kicking it off with another dispute.

That’s all speculative, though that’s all that can really be done unless further reporting sheds more light on the subject or Devers decides to open up about it. “I’m moving forward from the situation in Boston and looking forward to being a San Francisco Giant,” Devers said today, per Cotillo.

In the short term, Devers will presumably need some time to feel comfortable at first, having never played there in his career. The Giants recently moved on from first baseman LaMonte Wade Jr. and have been using Dominic Smith there, with Wilmer Flores in the DH spot. Devers is DHing tonight with Smith at first and Flores on the bench, though Flores has first base experience and could factor in there as well. Though Chapman is currently on the IL, the club doesn’t plan to use Devers at third, per Justice delos Santos of Mercury News.

Flores and Smith are both impending free agents. If Eldridge starts thriving in Triple-A, perhaps he gets called up later in the year, with Flores and/or Smith becoming trade candidates prior to the deadline. In the long run, it seems the Giants hope for a Devers/Eldridge duo in the first base/DH mix, though that will naturally depend upon Devers taking to the new position and Eldridge developing.

Meanwhile, Boston fans will be left with the hypotheticals. If playing first base wasn’t really the problem, then was there a way this could have all played out differently? What if the club had asked Devers to play first base back in November, prior to signing Bregman, and given him a full offseason/spring to prepare? What if they held him through this year and then broached the subject again ahead of the 2026 season? Those questions are all moot now as the club once again grapples with a star player leaving Boston for California.

Photos courtesy of Dale Zanine, Gregory Fisher, Jerome Miron, Sergio Estrada, Imagn Images

Giants Place Matt Chapman On 10-Day Injured List

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The Giants announced today that they’ve placed third baseman Matt Chapman on the 10-day injured list with a sprained right hand. Infielder Christian Koss was recalled to the club’s roster to replace Chapman. The infielder spoke at length Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle and Maria Guardado of MLB.com about his injury, noting that he’s certain to miss more than the minimum ten days after injuring his hand while diving towards third base in the eighth inning of the club’s game on Sunday.

Chapman indicated that he’s suffering from sprains in three of the fingers on his right hand, and each of those three fingers also has a bone bruise. The third baseman’s exact timeline for return is not yet clear, but he said he hopes to be back in action before the end of the first half. That suggests he hopes to return at some point before the All-Star break begins on July 14, although Slusser adds that Chapman is set to meet with hand specialist Dr. Steven Shin in Los Angeles on Friday and that the team will know more about his exact timeline for return after that meeting.

Even a few weeks without Chapman would be a frustrating bump in the road for a Giants team that has managed to outperform expectations in a big way this year, as they currently sit just 1.5 games back of the Dodgers in the NL West and firmly entrenched in the Wild Card mix. Chapman’s been a major part of that success so far, as he’s slashed an excellent .243/.360/.452 with a wRC+ of 134 while playing his typical excellent defense at the hot corner. That package has been enough to generate 2.5 fWAR in just 65 games, a figure that just nine players in the NL have managed to top so far this season. On top of his excellent season-long production, the veteran was also in the midst of a particularly hot stretch as he had been hitting .322/.429/.610 with a wRC+ of 194 over his past 17 games.

Replacing Chapman on the roster is Koss, who made his big league debut for San Francisco earlier this year. He hasn’t hit much in the majors yet, with a career slash line of just .219/.275/.266 (57 wRC+) across 29 games. Koss is an impressive and versatile defender, however, and he’ll likely slide into the utility role Casey Schmitt was previously getting used in while Schmitt takes over for Chapman at the hot corner. The 26-year-old seemed to enjoy something of a breakout last year when he posted a 109 wRC+ in 40 games, but this year he’s hit just .180/.281/.240 across 20 games despite fairly strong peripheral numbers. Perhaps sliding into an everyday role while Chapman is out of commission will give Schmitt the opportunities he needs to play closer to his peripheral numbers, which suggest he can be an average-to-above average hitter in the majors if he can turn that underlying performance into on-field production.

Clark: MLBPA Expects Lockout After 2026 Season

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Tony Clark, executive director of the MLB Players Association, expects the league to implement a lockout after the 2026 season. “Unless I am mistaken, the league has come out and said there’s going to be a work stoppage,” Clark said, per Barry M. Bloom of Sportico. “So, I don’t think I’m speaking out of school in that regard.” The current collective bargaining agreement is set to expire on December 1 of 2026.

That quote is in response to some previous comments made by Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred about a month ago. “In a bizarre way, it’s actually a positive,” Manfred said to Evan Drellich of The Athletic last month. “There is leverage associated with an offseason lockout and the process of collective bargaining under the [National Labor Relations Act] works based on leverage. The great thing about offseason lockouts is the leverage that exists gets applied between the bargaining parties.” He also praised a lockout as being preferable to in-season negotiations, saying that it’s “like using a .22 (caliber firearm), as opposed to a shotgun or a nuclear weapon.”

Clark disagreed in response at that time. “Players know from first-hand experience that a lockout is neither routine nor positive,” Clark said. “It’s a weapon, plain and simple, implemented to pressure players and their families by taking away a player’s ability to work.”

Relations between the league and the union have been combative in recent years and the current collective bargaining agreement was agreed to after a lockout which lasted several months. The previous CBA expired on December 1 of 2021 and the league instituted a lockout that very night. The negotiations continued into the spring, with a new agreement getting done on March 10 of 2022. That led to a rushed ramp-up to the 2022 season, though a full 162-game schedule was still completed via some scheduled doubleheaders.

Given that the relations between the two sides haven’t markedly improved, many in the baseball world expect another lockout to follow the expiration of the current CBA. Manfred’s comments only added to that suspicion and it seems Clark and the union are operating under that assumption.

There are many issues that will need to be discussed between now and then. There will be the ever-present topics of player compensation and revenue sharing, as well as more complex issues such as an international draft. The two sides are free to discuss these issues at any time but comments from Manfred make it seem unlikely that any progress will be made well in advance.

“I’m one that likes to bargain early, but we’re still two years away, even if you’re thinking you want to bargain early,” Manfred said about a month ago. “We got time on that front. And I think the time is particularly important right now, because we do have things going on in terms of the economics of the game — local media being the principal one — that the longer we wait, the more it evolves, the better decisions we’re going to make.”

From the players’ side, they seem to be assuming that Manfred is trying to generate leverage through the press. “I know that a lot of what Rob Manfred says in the media is posturing,” Giants third baseman Matt Chapman said recently to John Shea of the San Francisco Standard. “They’re all negotiating tactics. He tries to create his narrative.”

One topic that usually comes up in CBA discussions is a salary cap, though the MLBPA has always considered that a nonstarter. Evan Drellich of The Athletic recently reported that the owners are mulling a push for a cap when the next round of CBA talks gets going in earnest. David Rubenstein, principal owner of the Orioles, spoke publicly in favor of a cap in January. Clark, however, reiterated that the union has no desire to agree to such a measure.

“We remain of the mind, as we have over the last 50 or 60 years, that the industry does not need it,” Clark said today to Matt Weyrich of The Baltimore Sun. “It is not necessary. Whether it’s from a ‘competitive balance’ standpoint, or whether it’s from the ability of the industry to continue to grow and move forward, all of those things have happened in the absence of [a salary cap] and our game has thrived as a result.”

Many fans view a salary cap as the simplest way to combat certain inequities in baseball. That’s despite the fact that the sport hasn’t had recent dynastic runs like other leagues. MLB hasn’t seen a repeat champion since the 1998-2000 Yankees. There are huge gaps in terms of spending, with the Dodgers projected by RosterResource to have a $390MM payroll this year with some other clubs like the Marlins are down near $70MM. But despite that massive gap, those two clubs have the same number of World Series trophies over the past 35 years.

Still, there are fans of small-market clubs who feel overpowered when it comes to competitive balance. “There are ways of addressing the system that aren’t salary or cap related or require the restrictions of player salaries as the answer to every one of these questions,” Clark said, per Bloom. Presumably, Clark was referring to things like the fact that smaller-market clubs get extra picks in the draft via the competitive balance round as well as larger pools of bonus money to spend on international players, or perhaps the revenue-sharing agreements which could always be altered.  Those measures have helped clubs like the Rays, Guardians and Brewers stay consistently competitive despite far less spending capacity than some of their fellow clubs.

The larger point is that MLB is in fairly healthy shape overall. Maury Brown of Forbes recently reported that the league’s revenues hit a record $12.1 billion in 2024, without even accounting for alternate revenue streams such as from commercial real estate projects connected to ballparks. Various metrics have suggested the implementation of the pitch clock has helped baseball’s popularity more generally, in terms of ticket sales and TV ratings. Clark seemed to reference that situation in comments relayed by Weyrich today, suggesting that the proposed cap is less about competitive balance and more about increasing profits for owners.

“At this point in time, despite the fact that there was an announcement that the industry itself is doing better than it ever has, despite the fact that there was an announcement that there’s more viewership and more attendance than it has been in the last 10 or so years, you’re hearing the rhetoric around a salary cap because there’s an interest in moving more of that revenue from one side of the equation to the other.”

Matt Chapman Open To Temporary Shortstop Move If Giants Sign Ha-Seong Kim

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The Giants are in the market for a shortstop. President of baseball operations Buster Posey acknowledged as much at the start of the offseason. San Francisco has been tied to Willy Adames and Ha-Seong Kim in recent weeks.

While Adames could play shortstop on Opening Day, that’s not the case with Kim. He underwent surgery to repair a labrum injury in his throwing shoulder. There’s still not a ton of clarity on when he’s expected back in game action. Kim’s agent Scott Boras has unsurprisingly taken an optimistic stance on the infielder’s recovery. Boras said at last month’s GM Meetings that Kim could be ready early in the season — potentially before the end of April. Padres president of baseball operations A.J. Preller has previously suggested the rehab could carry into “May, June, July,” a much more nebulous timeline.

Whichever team signs Kim will need a stopgap shortstop for at least a few weeks, potentially months. For the Giants, that could be Matt Chapman. Ken Rosenthal of the Athletic reports that the star third baseman told team officials he’d be willing to play shortstop early in the year while Kim recovers. According to Rosenthal, that’s one of various possibilities the team is considering.

That’d be a creative solution. It’s not an outlandish one. Chapman is one of the sport’s best defensive third basemen. He’s a five-time Gold Glove winner. Both Defensive Runs Saved and Statcast’s Outs Above Average have graded him as a strong defender in every season of his career. Chapman tied Milwaukee’s Joey Ortiz for the league lead among third basemen in Outs Above Average this year. He’s fifth at the position by that metric across the past three seasons.

Chapman, who has 10 career innings at shortstop, has plenty of arm strength. He certainly has the hands for the position. The only question is whether he’d have enough lateral quickness to be a plus in the middle of the diamond, but he could probably at least play a competent shortstop for a month or two.

Sliding Chapman to shortstop would open a short-term hole at third base. Tyler Fitzgerald, Marco Luciano, Brett Wisely, Casey Schmitt and David Villar are among the options for work there. Aside from Villar, everyone from that group has some shortstop experience as well. None seems like a long-term answer. Wisely was primarily a second baseman in the minors, while Schmitt has spent most of his career at third base. Luciano has come up as a shortstop but was a disaster defensively in a limited MLB look. His long-term future is probably in the corner outfield.

Fitzgerald got the majority of the shortstop reps late in the season. He’d probably start there if the Giants came up empty in their pursuit. While he hit well enough to earn everyday playing time, the Giants seem to prefer him elsewhere. Posey suggested last month that Fitzgerald could be a second baseman. He also implied they were hopeful they could avoid bouncing him around the diamond as much next season.

“Tyler Fitzgerald did a great job at short last year. I think he has value and in multiple spots on the field,” Posey said at the GM Meetings (link via Shayna Rubin of the San Francisco Chronicle). “I do think it’s hard to play multiple spots at the same time during the season. Whether he’d be better suited to play second base long-term is a discussion we’re having.“

Gold Glove Winners Announced

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Major League Baseball announced the Gold Glove winners tonight, as selected by a group of managers, coaches, and statistical analysis.  Twenty-five percent of the selection total was determined by SABR’s Defensive Index metrics, while the other 75 percent was determined by votes from all 30 managers and up to six coaches from each team.  The utility Gold Glove was determined in a separate fashion, via a defensive formula calculated by SABR and Rawlings.

National League winners….

American League winners….

Latest On Matt Chapman Extension Negotiations

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About two weeks ago, in the late hours of September 4 Pacific Time, it was announced that the Giants and third baseman Matt Chapman agreed to a six-year, $151MM extension to keep him from opting out of his contract and returning to free agency. In recent days, a report from Andrew Baggarly of The Athletic characterized the negotiations as unusual, with former player Buster Posey dealing directly with Chapman, working around Giants president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi and Chapman’s agent Scott Boras. Posey is a minority owner of the club and a part of its board of directors.

This seemed to suggest that the club’s ownership group was losing faith in Zaidi as its top baseball decision maker. Today, a report from John Shea and Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle frames the negotiations differently. Per the report, which readers are encouraged to check out in full, Zaidi has been in the hospital a couple of times lately with an undisclosed medical issue, conducting business from there, and the involvement from other staff members was fairly normal in the context of his health-related absences. Today’s report from the Chronicle suggests that the previous reporting from The Athletic overstated Posey’s role in the whole affair. Both Boras and Zaidi spoke to the Chronicle and admitted that Posey was involved, which they both welcomed, but they pushed back on the idea that this was some kind of subterfuge operation.

“Any report that suggests that Farhan and I did not negotiate the financial package is inaccurate,” Boras told the Chronicle. “The years and guarantee totals presented to Matt were a product of a two-week negotiation conducted with Farhan and me while he was in and out of the hospital. As with most long-term contracts, once you have agreement on financial terms, there are ancillary contract terms – guarantee language, no-trade provisions, charitable donations, signing bonus and salary payment structure – that are commonly completed by other team officials. Once the ancillary terms were completed, Farhan and I exchanged a letter of agreement Monday afternoon (Sept. 2), and the agreement was concluded.” Zaidi framed things similarly.

Despite the different picture of the negotiations, the report does acknowledge that Zaidi appears to be on the hot seat. Per the Chronicle, the club’s board of directors wants to wait for the final weeks of the season to play out before deciding on Zaidi’s future. If his job security is tied to the Giants’ on-field performance, he may indeed be in trouble. They have gone 5-9 in September, bringing their season-long record down to 73-78. The remaining schedule is fairly strong. They play the Orioles twice more before three games each against the Royals, Diamondbacks and Cardinals.

There has been plenty of smoke around Zaidi and the front office lately, on the heels of a few years of tepid results. The club went 107-55 under his watch in 2021 but that record fell to 81-81 in 2022, then 79-83 last year and might be even lower this year. A week ago, a report from Shea revealed that the contracts of Zaidi and manager Bob Melvin are only guaranteed through 2025 and not 2026, as previously believed. Both contracts have some sort of club option structure for 2026 but nothing is locked in and the details of the options aren’t publicly known. That was followed by the report from The Athletic suggesting that the ownership group grew frustrated by a lack of progress in the Chapman talks and dispatched Posey to take the reins.

Today’s report frames things in a way that’s less detrimental to Zaidi but still doesn’t back away from the notion that he is in trouble. Per Shea and Slusser today, the owners will do whatever they think is best for the team, regardless of Zaidi’s contract situation and are “taking a hard look” at him. Whether all this smoke is indicative of a firing is something that will perhaps be revealed in the coming weeks and months.

Report: Buster Posey Spearheaded Extension Talks With Matt Chapman

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The Giants’ six-year, $151MM extension for third baseman Matt Chapman marked a departure from the organization’s reluctance to commit to players on long-term deals under president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi, though perhaps there’s an explanation for that. Andrew Baggarly of The Athletic reports that Giants ownership was “frustrated” by the lack of progress in talks between Zaidi and Chapman’s agent, Scott Boras, and intervened. Franchise icon Buster Posey, who bought a minority stake in the team in 2022 and is one of six members on the board of directors, took a lead role in the talks and negotiated the framework of the deal with Chapman himself, according to Baggarly. Readers are highly encouraged to check out the piece in full, as it contains a slew of details on the unusual nature of the Chapman negotiations.

Posey personally taking on such a prominent role in a franchise-altering negotiation is a potentially damning indictment on Zaidi’s status within the organization. The sixth-year president of baseball operations signed an extension just last year, but what was originally reported as a three-year contract has since been revealed to be a two-year contract covering the 2024-25 seasons and containing what’s effectively a club option for the 2026 season.

It’s not clear that the pair of reports, which surfaced within a week of one another, is evidence that Zaidi is on the proverbial hot seat. At the same time, it seems fair to infer — particularly in light of the revelation regarding his contract — that he’s not on quite as steady ground as it may have seemed even a few weeks ago. Giants ownership has publicly backed Zaidi whenever given the opportunity, but Posey’s prominent role in Chapman’s extension only raises questions of potential dissatisfaction. The Giants won’t be reaching the postseason this year, and they’re tracking toward what would be a fifth losing season in six under Zaidi’s tenure.

While the end result is the same regardless of who’s negotiating the contract, the journey to that agreement is notable. Maybe this was just a one-off where the board felt Posey, as a former player, could appeal directly to a player he’s gotten to know over the course of the current season. If things have reached the point where ownership has genuinely lost faith in Zaidi’s vision and/or his ability to close deals, that would be a far more alarming development and likely the portent for a change of note in the front office.

It’s worth noting, of course, that the Giants have signed plenty of free agents under Zaidi’s watch (MLBTR Contract Tracker link). The majority have been short-term pacts, however. The Giants let successfully rehabilitated pitchers like Kevin Gausman and Carlos Rodon walk rather than pay market price for either pitcher. (The latter decision seems wise; the former is regrettable.) They pursued Bryce Harper in free agency but reportedly stopped just $20MM or so short of Harper’s eventual contract with the Phillies. A pursuit of Aaron Judge ultimately only served to drive up the price for the Yankees, who kept their homegrown star. A massive 13-year deal with Carlos Correa was scuttled when the Giants raised concerns about Correa’s physical.

Center fielder Jung Hoo Lee (six years, $113MM) is the only free agent the Giants have signed for more than Jordan Hicks’ four years or more than Blake Snell’s $62MM guarantee. The aversion to long-term deals has certainly kept the Giants’ payroll outlook clean, but the results on the lower-cost free agent deals made have frequently failed to pan out. Mitch Haniger and Jorge Soler both signed three-year deals and were both dumped in salary-driven trades before the second season of said contracts commenced. Tommy La Stella was released two years into a three-year contract. The Giants dumped the final season of Anthony DeSclafani’s three-year deal on the Mariners along with Haniger. The second season of Ross Stripling’s two-year deal was sent to the A’s in a salary dump deal. Michael Conforto has been a roughly league-average bat over the life of his two-year, $36MM deal. Smaller-scale two-year deals for Luke Jackson (dumped along with Soler) and Tom Murphy have backfired.

Zaidi undoubtedly built plenty of goodwill with home-run signings of Gausman, Drew Smyly, Derek Holland and (the first time) DeSclafani. Low-cost pickups of Mike Yastrzemski, LaMonte Wade Jr., Joc Pederson, Darin Ruf, Donovan Solano and Thairo Estrada (among others) have also been unmitigated successes. But many of those early success stories have since moved on, while others have seen their effectiveness fade. And the recent low-cost acquisitions haven’t had the same level of impact on the organization, while the farm has seen several top prospects stall out.

All of that is vital context when trying to ascertain what the Chapman report signals for Zaidi and his future with the organization. Zaidi himself downplayed the scenario to Baggarly, suggesting he and ownership worked “in sync” and telling Baggarly that ownership involvement is to be expected on a contract of this magnitude. That’s true, broadly speaking, though ownership circumventing both the front office and the player agent to hammer out a deal is not typical business.

Given the Giants’ likely interest in keeping Snell — another Boras client — the manner in which the Chapman deal came together is all the more intriguing. The Boras Corporation also represents a significant number of free agents this offseason: Juan Soto, Corbin Burnes, Alex Bregman, Pete Alonso, Yusei Kikuchi, J.D. Martinez, Nick Martinez, Sean Manaea and Tyler O’Neill are among the most notable Boras clients that could be on the market this winter (as can be seen in MLBTR’s Agency Database).

Giants Extend Matt Chapman

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The Giants made a major splash overnight, announcing that they’ve extended the contract of third baseman Matt Chapman. The deal guarantees Chapman $151MM over six years and runs from 2025 to 2030, with a $25MM annual salary and a $1MM signing bonus paid out in 2025. According to ESPN’s Jeff Passan, Chapman’s deal contains a no-trade clause.

Chapman, 31, signed with the Giants on a three-year deal worth $54MM with opt outs after each season over the offseason when his market didn’t develop to expected levels last winter. In the months since then, it’s become apparent that the first of those opt-out opportunities would be exercised as the infielder has largely quelled his doubters with his best season in half a decade. His first season in a Giants uniform has seen him post a strong .247/.343/.445 slash line, good for a 118 wRC+, in 136 games. In addition to a strong season at the plate, he’s also put together his most impressive defensive season in years with +7 OAA and +13 DRS, his best showing in either metric since 2021.

With Chapman poised to return to free agency in search of a bigger contract elsewhere, the Giants have now made sure that he’ll remain with the club for the foreseeable future. The third baseman’s deal figures to keep him in San Francisco through the end of his age-37 season, and matches the six-year, $150MM prediction we at MLBTR made regarding Chapman’s contract ahead of the 2023-24 offseason almost exactly. The contract is representative of the potential upside that players who take opt-out laden deals can find if their initial foray into free agency doesn’t go according to plan; Chapman now figures to ultimately walk away from his time with the Giants having pocketed $169MM over seven years, though of course this outcome required not only a healthy season from the 31-year-old but his best season overall since 2019.

By staying in San Francisco long-term, Chapman ensures that he will spend the majority of his playing career in the Bay Area. The longtime Athletic was selected 25th overall by Oakland in the 2014 draft and made his debut with the club back in 2017.  He’d ultimately spend the first five seasons of his career in an A’s uniform, earning three Gold Glove awards, finishing in the top 10 of AL MVP voting twice, and making his first and so far only career All-Star game during that time. When the A’s began a total rebuild following the 2021 season, however, he was shipped to Toronto just before the 2022 campaign began and spend two years in Toronto. Now that Chapman is on a long-term deal with the Bay Area’s other MLB team, one of the stars of the Athletics’ final playoff team in Oakland will outlast the team itself in the community as the club stands poised to relocate following the 2024 campaign.

As for the Giants, the deal represents the second largest financial outlay in the club’s history and is dwarfed only by Buster Posey’s $166.5MM guarantee in his early-career extension with the team. By keeping Chapman in the fold, San Francisco locks up a potential cornerstone after failing in multiple well-documented pursuits of star players in recent years, ranging from Bryce Harper and Giancarlo Stanton to more recent pursuits of Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani. While Chapman doesn’t have the star power of any of those players, he’s a reliable defender and source of power at third base who offers a solid floor of 3 WAR on an annual basis, with upside much higher than that when he’s at his best.

Of course, it’s worth noting that Chapman’s reliability could decline on both sides of the ball as he enters his mid 30’s, a particularly notable caveat given the fact that he’ll play next season at 32 years old. At the same time, the deal makes Chapman the latest long-term piece put into place by a Giants club that has seemed somewhat listless in recent years as they search for an identity and struggle to contend in the era following the departures of Posey, Brandon Belt, and Brandon Crawford. Alongside Chapman, the club has Logan Webb and Kyle Harrison locked into the rotation, Jung Hoo Lee and Heliot Ramos in the outfield, and Patrick Bailey behind the plate through at least the end of the 2028 campaign. That’s a core of talent that could compete for a playoff spot in the coming years if properly supplemented, which is a clear step in the right direction for a franchise that appears to be trending towards its third consecutive sub-.500 finish this year.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Giants, Matt Chapman Have “Had Conversations” About Potential Extension

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For the second consecutive year, Matt Chapman stands as one of the top impending free agent hitters. Unless he suffers a significant injury in the next few weeks, he is all but assured to opt-out of the final two years and $36MM on his deal with the Giants.

Jon Heyman of the New York Post reported a couple weeks ago that San Francisco was hopeful of retaining the star third baseman on a new multi-year deal. Agent Scott Boras confirmed as much to Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle, telling her that the sides have had some discussions. President of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi framed things similarly, telling Slusser the parties have “had conversations” and “active dialogue” on a long-term arrangement.

That’s rather vague terminology that certainly doesn’t suggest anything is imminent. It’s nevertheless confirmation there’s some amount of mutual interest in keeping Chapman in San Francisco. He’s a California native who has a longstanding relationship with skipper Bob Melvin dating back to their time in Oakland.

Chapman hasn’t had any problem acclimating to Oracle Park. He takes a .245/.335/.442 batting line and his customarily strong defensive grades into tonight’s game in Seattle. He’s at 20+ homers for the fifth time in his career with a strong 11% walk percentage. Chapman’s 24.3% strikeout rate is a bit higher than the league mark but would be his lowest rate since 2019. It’s very good all-around production despite a slow start. Chapman limped to a .266 on-base percentage through the end of April. He has been one of the most productive infielders in the majors since then, posting a .253/.355/.461 line with 16 homers dating back to May 1.

It’s the inverse pattern to Chapman’s 2023 campaign. He was arguably the best player in the majors through the season’s first month last year. His offensive numbers plummeted after that and he hit the market with something of a down-arrow trajectory. Chapman had an easy call to decline a qualifying offer from the Blue Jays, but he and his camp at the Boras Corporation did not find the money they were seeking.  It wasn’t until the beginning of March that he inked a $54MM guarantee with multiple opt-outs.

Between a signing bonus, his salary, and a buyout (assuming he opts out), Chapman is making $20MM this year. That’s about what he’d have made if he’d taken the QO from Toronto — although the extra two years present more long-term security than the qualifying offer would have provided.

Chapman will presumably try again to land a deal that pushes into nine figures. He’ll play almost all of next season at age 32. It’s difficult but not impossible to pull a $100MM+ deal at that age. As shown on MLBTR’s Contract Tracker, there have been four nine-figure deals within the last decade for hitters who were 32 or older. Freddie Freeman’s six-year, $162MM pact led the way among free agent contracts. Jose Altuve, Paul Goldschmidt and Manny Machado signed extensions ranging between $125MM and $170MM in new money on five-year terms.

Those players were all better hitters than Chapman has been. As a plus defender at third base, he provides more value on that side of the ball than all of them, aside from maybe Machado. Teams could be wary about paying for defense into a player’s mid-30s.

A five-year term for Chapman would run through his age-36 season. That’s the point through which Kris Bryant and Anthony Rendon were paid on seven-year contracts (both of which have been disasters for the team). Chapman certainly isn’t going to approach Rendon’s $35MM annual salary. Bryant’s $26MM AAV is a more realistic target, albeit on a what’d likely be a four- or five-year term instead of seven.

Josh Donaldson and DJ LeMahieu each signed through age-37 as free agent third basemen. Both guarantees checked in just south of $100MM. Those contracts are a few years old and were both signed after the player declined a qualifying offer, thereby attaching draft compensation. The Giants cannot make Chapman a QO — the CBA prevents a player from receiving more than one in his career — so he’d hit the market entirely unencumbered. Barring some kind of hometown discount, Chapman presumably wouldn’t be interested in forgoing a free agent trip for less than the Donaldson and LeMahieu guarantees.

Alex Bregman leads the impending free agent class at third base. Chapman is the clear #2 option and the class drops off dramatically from there. Last winter’s group was even shallower. Assuming one considers Cody Bellinger primarily an outfielder rather than a first baseman, Chapman’s $54MM guarantee led all infielders.

As Slusser observes, a Chapman extension may need to be San Francisco’s biggest investment under this front office. The Giants have only signed one nine-figure deal since they hired Farhan Zaidi as president of baseball operations during the 2018-19 offseason: last winter’s six-year, $113MM pact for 25-year-old center fielder Jung Hoo Lee. They’ve taken plenty of bigger swings and were a failed physical away from signing Carlos Correa for $350MM, but they’ve yet to actually land a domestic free agent on a long-term deal. They’ve been much more amenable to shorter-term pickups with opt-outs for players whose markets didn’t develop as they’d hoped (e.g. Carlos Rodón, Michael Conforto, Blake Snell, Chapman).

The Giants have around $132MM in guaranteed money for next season. Expected opt-outs for Snell and Chapman would knock that down to roughly $85MM. Lee, Logan Webb, Robbie Ray (assuming he doesn’t opt out this year) and Jordan Hicks are the only players signed beyond next year. That doesn’t include arbitration projections for Mike Yastrzemski, Thairo Estrada, Tyler Rogers, LaMonte Wade Jr. and Camilo Doval. Estrada and Yastrzemski are potential trade or non-tender candidates. The Giants should have a good amount of payroll flexibility even if they retain everyone from their arbitration group.

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