Matt Chapman goes to the Giants

Ughhhhhhhh

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On Friday night, news broke that Matt Chapman has agreed to a three year, $54 million contract with the San Francisco Giants, with opt-outs after each of the first two years. He’ll make $20 million in 2024—less than he’d have made if he’d simply taken the Qualifying Offer the Jays made him back in November (nice job, Scott)—then, if he stays, $18 million in 2025, and then, if he stays again, $16 million in 2026. It’s an incredibly nice deal for San Francisco.

Given Chapman’s elite defence, even if his offensive output continues to sink—and I don’t think it will, considering his poor 2023 was strongly coloured by the weeks in which he tried to play through a finger injury—and he chooses to play out the entire deal, it will probably end up a net positive regardless. He was a 3.5 fWAR player in 2023 despite a 110 wRC+, and a 4.1 fWAR player in 2021 despite a 101 wRC+.

I can think of another team that could have used signing a guy like that to a contract like that! Or, frankly, who could have used offering him even more. However, it turns out that the guy who rushed to hand Isiah Kiner-Falefa a two-year, $15 million contract was, in fact, not some kind of market genius slow-playing Chapman right into his own lap.

Apparently it turns out Ross Atkins is OK with giving IKF—83 wRC+ over the last three seasons combined—a ton of reps at third base. It turns out Ross is also OK with making Daulton Varsho—not just a perfectly viable CF, but a player who has had so much offensive variance in his career and was so bad last year as to make it crystal clear that his ideal position is in centre—his left fielder again. Because for some reason he needed Kevin Kiermaier!

Now, I don’t dislike Kiermaier in a vacuum—IKF is another story (as a player, obviously)—but he’s admitted himself that he was surprised by the lack of interest in him when he hit the free agent market this winter. Yet there was Ross, bidding against himself to land him—and, apparently, to also tie up so much money as to make it impossible to fix the Cronenberg-esque roster he’s pointlessly cobbled together. Even as talented free agents kept getting cheaper and cheaper as the winter dragged on. Cool!

Look, Ross has done many more good things than bad in his tenure. Last year’s results were really disappointing, but that’s largely because the team was—and should have been—really good. This year’s team can still be very good too—and not just because there are guys like J.D. Martinez, or Adam Duvall, or Robbie Grossman, or J.D. Davis and any number of other potential trade candidates still out there. It might work! It wouldn’t be shocking if it did. And I’m not going to pretend I’m not writing this while mad. But, like, this offseason, if this really is it, has kinda been a fireable offence.

The highest payroll in club history translating to a 47.4% chance of making the playoffs? Bo and Vlad just 18 months away from being the biggest free agent prizes on the ‘25-’26 market? It doesn’t feel good, man.

Anyway, you may be wondering why everything I’ve written here so far is in italics. Well, it’s because minutes before the news broke about Chapman’s deal with the Giants, I had finished writing a bunch on the idea of Atkins hypothetically missing out on him. It was part of a whole Stray Thoughts thing I was working on. The other bits will mostly show up elsewhere—apologies to several Gerrit Cole jokes that will have to be shelved until the next time he fills his diaper—but rather than simply throwing the Chapman part in the trash, or trying to rework it into something new, I’m just going to present it here, as is. I think you’ll see why. This was simply the preamble to a historical document…

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When Ross Atkins spoke to reporters as camp opened two weeks ago and said that “at this point, additions that would be of significance would mean some level of subtraction,” it wasn't entirely clear whether he meant that they'd have to move players or money in order to bring in someone like Matt Chapman. Either way, this would be stupid for a number of reasons.

Now, Chapman hasn't signed, so the Jays haven't missed out on anything yet, and I think that's important to remember. It's also important to remember that it wouldn't be in the Blue Jays' interest to outright tell Scott Boras that they have room both on the roster and in the payroll to bring Chapman back. You're not going to get the deal you want if the other side isn't starting to sweat. Thing is, Boras has to be looking at the Jays and thinking much the same. I mean, they can't possibly be serious, can they?

If they are—if having too many players they like, and too much money on the books already, really is the impediment—then there's only one idiot* to blame. Hint: it's the guy who pointlessly decided to give IKF $7.5 million (and the same amount again next year!), who decided to tender contracts to Santiago Espinal ($2.725 million) and Trevor Richards ($2.15 million), and who exercised Chad Green's two-year, $21 million option.

That's $22.875 million to four players that FanGraphs' Depth Charts project to be worth 2.4 WAR while taking up four roster spots. Depth Charts projects Chapman to be worth 3.3 WAR while taking up just one. I know which situation I'd prefer.

Of course, had they taken that route and then missed out on Chapman they'd be even worse off, and likely still searching for another established reliever. So it can't have just been about one player at one price—the market just doesn’t work that way. But to me—and I think a whole lot of other people—it's going to look like serious mismanagement if they don't end up with him, given that all they’ve done otherwise is cover the gaps in the floor. Doing more is easier said than done, but that’s the job. At minimum.

I've said this before, but for all the whining about how risk-averse this front office supposedly is, coming into the season projected to have less than a 50% chance of making the playoffs would be taking a massive one. With their jobs. With a crucial year in the team's window. With the franchise, frankly.

I’ve also said this before: there’s an easy fix.

*OK, OK, two idiots. We can't forget the billionaire who, in this still-hypothetical scenario, would be the reason the second luxury tax threshold is being treated like a red line at the expense of putting an optimal team on the field. But hey, at least the Jays are set to have a top five opening day payroll this year. Finally! Fans must be over the moon!

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