I just realized I should post on the signing of Matt Chapman (sorry, been busy dealing with leaking pipes ruining walls and engine mounts failing on my car...). Per NBC Sports,
2024: $16 million salary, plus $2 million signing bonus
2025: $17 million player option or a $2 million buyout
2026: $18 million player option or a $3 million buyout
2027: $20 million mutual option or $1 million buyout
So, here are the scenarios as far as I can tell:
- It's $20M if he opts out after one year ($18M plus $2M buyout)
- It's $38M if he opts out after two years ($18M /$17M plus $3M buyout)
- It's $54M if he opts out after three years ($18M/$17M/$18$ plus $1M buyout) or if the Giants buy him out to void the fourth year
- It's $73M if he stays the full four years
Whew! It can cover his 31-34 YO seasons, depending on the opt out/ins. Based on $8M/WAR, that's 2.5 WAR in 2024, 2.25 WAR in 2025, 2.0 WAR in 2026, and 2.4 WAR in 2027, for a total of 9.15 WAR to be produced in the four seasons.
ogc thoughts
At last, the Giants rumored pursuit of Chapman is over and they got their man! It's an odd contract, but it's a better contract than the projected 5 years/$90M by The Athletic and way better than the rumored 5-6 years/$150-175M contract he was reported wanting, as we are only committed to him for 3 years if he starts regressing at any point, which was a fear that many fans had, calling him Longoria 2.0. It's also not an unreasonable fear, given that 3B is known for grinding away even the best athletes, and that's the reasoning I read about for why there are less 3B in the HoF.
Defense Never Rests
The main thing the Giants want him for is his Gold Glove level of defense. which he has won 4 times, including 2023. Per Fielding Percentage, UZR, and DRS, he's a significantly better defender at third than JD Davis, but per OAA, Davis had 6 and Chapman had 5. I also checked on ground balls per team, and the Giants had 25% more PA with grounders than Toronto, so Chapman could produce even more value because the advanced metrics can only give credit when there is a fielding play for the player.
Offensively, his OPS was about the same as Davis, hence why many preferred not to sign him (basically because they didn't think his defense was worth it; again, I'll note the 25% more grounders the Giants had over Toronto). They were also worried about his poor hitting, as his batting line was a very low .659 OPS over the last five months of the seasaon. But when I examined the underlying data, just seems to be bad BABIP luck, which probably was just regression to the mean.
Over the last two years, he's hit .234/.327/.429/.756 with .298 BABIP, 69% contact rate, and 39% eye (BB/K), which is in line with his career .295 BABIP, 68% contact rate, and 39% eye. In the last five months, he hit.205/.298/.361/.659 with .276 BABIP, 66% contact rate, and 35% eye, which is .022 BABIP less than the two year period and .019 BABIP less then for his career.
Another way to look at it is to see what StatCast estimated his Expected BA and Expected SLG to be, based on the contact he was making. His xBA is .236 and xSLG is .456 for the 2023 season. He also added on .093 to his BA to get his OBP. This is his expected batting line, vs. his 2023 batting line:
- Expected: .236/.329/.456/.785
- Actual : .240/.330/.424/.755
So, based on his expected hitting, it looks like he suffered from some severe bad luck most of the season (it happens!) with his hard hit balls, which should have led to an elite .785 OPS, but instead he was down 30 points.
Net Gain with Chapman Over Davis
Overall, I expect him to be pretty close to matching up to his contract. He produced 4.4 bWAR/3.5 fWAR in 2023, and ZiPS projects him at 3.7 zWAR in 2024, 3.0 zWAR in 2025, 2.4 zWAR in 2026, at which point, if he's still with the team, the Giants should buy him out because that last season jumps production back up to 2.4 WAR to equal the contract. If ZiPS is correct, that's 9.1 fWAR for 6.75 WAR production paid for by contract. And by my analysis above, his hitting appears to be relatively stable for the past two seasons, that the down period was more regression to the mean to compensate for how hot he was in April.
In addition, he has averaged roughly 4.0 bWAR the past three seasons, so it seems reasonable to believe he can be in that ball park in 2024 (3.7 zWAR is the projection). Plus, he missed 10% of the games last season due to a non-playing injury (hurt his hand working out), which would have boosted him in 2023 to around 4.8 bWAR/3.8 fWAR. Furthermore, most free agent analysis I've seen assumes future drops of 0.5 WAR per year from the prior year, which would put him at 3.9/3.4/2.9/2.4 based on bWAR, 3.0/2.5/2.0/1.5 based on fWAR, and averaging the two yields 3.45 WAR. With most of the projections in the 3.5 WAR range, that seems to be a reasonable estimate of his 2024 production.
Meanwhile, JD Davis is projected to be around 1-2 WAR production, but adjusting for playing most of the season, most have him in the 1.5-2.0 WAR range of production. So it seems reasonable to expect a boost of about 2 wins having Chapman in the lineup vs. Davis, especially since Chapman can expect a boost in his defensive rate stats since the Giants are more of a ground ball team than the Blue Jays.
I think that his defense will pay off more because the Giants focus on ground balls, and because it is likely that Luciano will be playing a significant amount of time at SS. For, as nicely as Nick Ahmed has been hitting in spring training, perhaps due to the adrenaline of playing for another team, his batting line was not league average either, and the Giants lineup cannot afford to have a black hole in the lineup, whereas Luciano is projected to be roughly league average for a SS. Having Chapman manning the hot corner will enable the Giants to play Luciano as the starting SS, as his Gold Glove range will help cover Luciano's lack of talent for playing SS as well as the average SS.
Roster Dominoes
His signing has consequences for the 26-man roster, likely triggering a trade of JD Davis. Obviously, Davis was slotted to be the starting 3B before Chapman signed. The bench is currently full with Murphy as the backup catcher, Flores as the platoon buddy with Wade at 1B (two of the best hitters on the team in 2023, Slater as the platoon buddy with Yaz in RF (two more good hitters, better than Davis), and the MI utility guy, which looks to be Fitzgerald right now, though they might decide to utilize Luciano and Ahmed in this role, as well, depending on who wins the starting SS role.
That leaves Davis as odd man out. Flores would be the closest in role who he might replace, since both are RHH corner infielders, but Flores hit .863 OPS, tops on the team by far. And Davis also had a bad second half of 2023, with the steep plunge happening with the June 18 game, perhaps due to his injuring his ankle sliding into third in the June 13th game. He actually hit really well in the first game back from the injury, but it was downhill from there for the rest of the season, until the last month of the season, where he reverted back to early form. That could be a selling point for the Giants, along with his improved 3B defense.
The most obvious trading partner should be the Toronto Blue Jays, Chapman's former employer. They are left in the dust now, having a journeyman 3B now. Davis would be a huge boost, and a position of need, for a low salary. Unfortunately, they are not also in need of a backup catcher who is defensive oriented, their starter is defensive oriented, plus a budding good hitter and younger to boot, and they have a couple of offensive catchers as backup last season. They could use a good hitter like Conforto, though, for the OF or DH or both (Matos is hitting really well, showing off his new power, to build off his good contact skills, so the Giants could decide to trade Conforto to save money for another free agent signing).
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