SF Giants Sign Matt Chapman!

welcome back it's Friday night we have action the San Francisco Giants have signed third baseman Matt Chapman to a threeyear $ 54 million contract with player opt outs after both of the first two seasons the structure of the contract is going to be $20 million in 2024 $18 million in 2025 and $16 million in 2026 if he reaches that point of the deal so here I was about to hit record we were going to start talking about um standout players for the Giants in first week of spring training games and the News drops on my phone before I start recording from John hymon every Giants Fan's favorite reporter saying the Giants had agreed with a deal with Matt Chapman and then Jeff pass and confirmed it so everybody could you know breath breathe a sigh of relief um so for those that are looking for spring training content and you know talk on that I will be doing that tomorrow barring some shocking news of you know say they signed Mike you know Blake Snell or something on top of it so that is going to be going tomorrow just so everyone knows but now we're gonna get back to talking about Matt Chapman and what he brings to the table so as many of you know I've been against signing Matt Chapman to a long-term contract I have maintained from day one that if we were just looking at it in a vacuum who the best third baseman for the Giants would be for 2024 it's been Matt Chapman he's clearly the best option on the table so what does Matt Chapman bring number one defense uh talking about a guy that's had 92 defensive runs saved since he's come to the league in 2017 which is tops among third basemen um even last season in 20123 he was worth 12 defensive runs saved and four outs above average his career outs above average are um believe 58 53 outs above average so he's Elite he's won several Platinum gloves meaning he was the best defensive player in all of baseball any position and he's a four-time Gold Glove winner so he is you know it could be the expectation the reasonable expectation is he's probably going to be at minimum a finalist for the Gold Glove at third baseman if he's healthy um he is now barring Health he's also been incredibly durable in his career which is a nice change last year he only played 140 games which you know JD Davis has only done a couple times before that 155 in 2022 15 151 in 2021 and 156 in 2019 145 in 2018 now he did battle a hand I think it was a finger injury last season kind of sapped him of some power so it is something to keep in mind um number two is power output that he brings um this is a guy that has had uh in over his last three seasons had 58 extra base hits in 2023 17 of those were home runs 55 extra base hits in 2022 27 of those were home runs 45 extra base hits in 2021 27 of those were home runs as well so for an offense that has lacked some thump he is going to bring some thump to the offense this is a guy that if you go on his baseball Savant page and take a look at you know kind of where he falls and you know P MLB percentile rankings he's in the 98th percentile on average exit velocity he's in the 98th percentile on bar Barrel percentage he's in the 100th percentile on hard hit percentage um he was basically the best player in baseball in April and parts of May last season before he injured his finger so he was he hits the cover off the ball when he makes contact so he does bring that to the table now this is a guy with a that does have a lot of swing and Miss um his last couple years he's been a little better it's been 28.4% 27.4% over the last two years he was up in the mid-30s low to mid-30s for the previous two years um and he's got a career strikeout percentage of about of 27.2% so there is a lot of swing and Miss to him now flip side of that though is he's in um he is in the 94th percentile in Chase per percentage so he doesn't you know give doesn't help pitchers out a lot he does draw a ton of walks last few years 10.7% last year 11% the year before that 12.9% the year before that he's got a career walk rate of 10.6% so he is going to get you you know draw he's going to draw a lot of walks for you um so you know looking at the Giants and how he's going to help them uh kind of as I mentioned on a previous episode this is a team that was 19th in home runs 25th in doubles 27th in slugging percentage 24th in on base percentage and 26 in Ops he should help in all of those categories if he just has kind of his normal Matt Chapman year now his Bat has taken a little bit of a step back he's been kind of in the mid 700s for Ops the last couple years there's always a possibility maybe he gets with Burl gets with the right team you right hitting coaches maybe he can kind of rebound closer to his Oakland days and get that up over 800 that'd be ideal if he does that he would certainly be opting out after this season but the Giants would be getting a humongous season out of him and they probably love every second of that I think I would most fans would love that he plays well enough that he opts out so that's something to keep in mind uh the Giants were also 28th in average don't think that's going to be something that really Matt Chapman does a you know it does a ton to help there he's got a career 240 average even you know every year for the last five years two going back starting in 2019 hit 249 232 210 229 and then 240 last year so he's probably gonna hit you know he's hopefully gonna hit about 240 at least I think that's I would love for him to be between 240 and 250 and then just maintain his you know his on base about where it is which it's usually about 3:30 for his career and then you know provide some power you know that's really what they need um in a perfect world he'd probably be hitting six for the Giants right now you're probably hitting him fifth right behind Jorge Solair but you know what he's more protection for Jorge Solair than you know anybody else I mean the reality is he can beat you with the long ball better than anyone else on the roster not named jge Solair and teams aren't going to want to risk putting a guy on in front of him just to you just for him to possibly Park one on them so it does provide legitimate protection for slair so that is a big positive there um he's got a little bit of a limited career in Oracle Park um he's in his career he has had 58 plate appearances 14 for 53 which is a 264 average three doubles three home runs he's got a 327 on base percentage and a 490 uh slugging percentage comes out to an 8 17 Ops so not a ton of you know appearances there mostly most of them were with Oakland um but he's had success there um he's one of his home runs actually was into the right field arcade in a night game so clearly he's got pop if you can put it over that fence in a night game as a right-handed hitter that's a poke um so the park I don't think will be a massive issue for him obviously he's probably going to lose a few to Right Center field but for those that have gone on to his baseball Savant and you know use this information for what you can I have kind of mixed feelings about uh this data and its accuracy but they do have they call the expected home runs by Park that you know supposedly factors in wall Heights distances environmental effects which I mean I don't know how you factor in environmental effects as far as like what's the atmospheric pressure in San Francisco at any given time but somehow the people way smarter than me figure out that stuff so if you buy into that the last three years I'm going to use here in 2021 his expected home runs in Oracle Park were 36 in 2022 it was 32 and in 2023 it was 18 so he actually based on what he actually did hit which was 27 in 21 20 27 in 2022 and 17 last season he actually lost home runs every season by playing in a different Park than Oracle Park so if we go off of those numbers he hopefully will be able to H hit just fine in Oracle kind of factoring in that and his past performance in San Francisco so I don't think the Park's going to be that you know horribly difficult for him a lot of his power does come to left from center field to left field for the most part um which for right-handed hitters is much more favorable than left-handed hitters so uh that's kind of where you use that information where what you can um so where does this kind of leave the Giants financially um as I said he makes $20 million in 2024 that's going to put their regular payroll to about 172 million as it stands uh their competitive balance tax payroll as of right now they were about 46 million short of the tax based on spot track I think fangraphs has a bit of a different number um I'm going to have to kind of do more research on fan graphs but that's usually based on average annual value of the deals so for him it's going to be $18 million average on the contract so 18 million is what would be going towards the competitive balance tax for this season um that means the Giants still have about $28 million in space so they might be able to fit one hm Blake Snell into that uh maybe on another short-term deal similar structured he'd make a lot more money than Chapman but this episode's up Chapman so we're gonna kind of let the snow thing go for right now um but they are also going to have to move either JD Davis or Wilmer Flores so uh we'll see kind of where they go there but they cannot fit both of them if they're going to have Chapman on the roster one of them is going to be kind you know either those guys can play Third Base to back up Chapman but also either of those guys is going to be the right-handed option in the platoon at first base with Lamont Way Jr so seems like they value Flores more I'd imagine JD is a guy that get Mo gets moved if he does um he should have some value you know he's not a bad player JD Davis is a solid player he's coming off a really good year he's in his prime he's only got one year left he's not expensive he's making $6.9 million I'd imagine they'd be able to move him for you know if you took someone's top prospect list someone in the 10 to 15 range on a team's any given team's top prospects should be able to at least get like a mid-level guy that's high a arm or something you know they should be able to get something of value for JD Davis you're not just giving him away and paying half his salary so um he's probably gonna be the guy that gets moved I'd imagine and that's fine you know he him and Chapman have actually provided a lot of similar numbers um you know if you go off WRC plus and things like that like in relation to League average they've been similar caliber hitters in their plate appearances but Chapman does it in larger sample size hasn't been a platoon player plays every day so clearly a better player not to mention the defense so that's kind of where it leaves him there they have the room they can continue to add if that's what they want to do we'll see what happens but overall as I said I I think this is a really good deal for the Giants I'm what I'm most grateful for is I've been harping on them to pick a direction either play the kids or go try and win they are clearly trying to win and they sending the message that they are trying to win and I appreciate that because you know it's one thing to say you're trying to win and then keep trotting out a bunch of middling vets at a lot of positions to go get a guy that's been one of the best third basemen in the game at his Prime and putting him at third base at least for this season you are obviously trying to win in 2024 and there are two teams that you know with the Dodgers and Braves that are going to clearly be in the playoffs at the end of the year but you have a huge mess of teams that all look like they're about going to win about 85 games this year between the Phillies the Reds the Padres the Giants the you know the Diamondbacks who won the pennet last year you know you got a whole mess I'm probably you know the Marlins might not be that bad you throw them in there you know there's a whole bunch of teams that feel like they're going to finish right in the middle the Brewers haven't even blown it up yet other than trading Burns they've added Hoskins and you know they still have adamus and a bunch of other guys so they might still be decent you know so there's a lot of you know it's it's wide open in the NL and you if they can go get Snell or get another pitcher then all sudden you get Robbie rayb back at the end of the year and things like that they could really potentially Make some noise and have a team that could you know be competitive that time in October so phenomenal deal my opinion as I said earlier I'm going to talk spring training baseball probably tomorrow assuming nothing else happens on the next day um other than that I hit 200 subscribers today uh appreciate all the support from everyone if you like the content anyone that's not subscribed like the channel or like the video subscribe to the channel um click the Bell if you want to be 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