Giants keep invaluable building block in Chapman with extension

SAN FRANCISCO — Matt Chapman was scratched from the lineup about an hour before first pitch on Wednesday, and in a curious move, the Giants didn’t give a reason. Immediately after the game, manager Bob Melvin said his third baseman wasn’t injured. 

“He’s fine,” Melvin said of his most durable player. “It was about time to give him one.”

The Giants are giving Chapman much more than that. 

A few minutes after the clubhouse closed, the Giants announced that Chapman has agreed toterms on a six-year, $151 million contract extension, a deal that will keep him from opting out this offseason, and likely keep him in San Francisco for the rest of his career. 

The 31-year-old is a Scott Boras client, and Boras almost always prefers for his stars to hit the open market. But Chapman presented a unique case. Boras has so many marquee clients this winter — led by Juan Soto — that Chapman might have again had to wait for the dust to settle. He wouldn’t have even necessarily been the most coveted third baseman on the market; Alex Bregman, another Boras client, will hit free agency too.

There were a lot of reasons for Chapman to be proactive, including this one: He loves playing in San Francisco and has felt rejuvenated here. The Giants feel the same way about the player who has been their leader this season and put up numbers that are more in line with his days as a star across the Bay Bridge. 

Chapman has 22 homers and a .778 OPS, and he looks like a strong bet to take home his fifth Gold Glove Award. He entered the day ranked 13th in the big leagues in fWAR, and he easily leads all NL third basemen. He also posts every single day, as Wednesday’s rare break was just his fourth of the season. 

The Giants are betting that Chapman can keep that production going, and at the very least, his glove is a carrying tool that should keep him valuable even if other areas of his game start to slide. They’re betting big, too. 

Chapman returned to the Bay Area in part because he found the market last winter to be unexpectedly cool. The Giants got him on a modest three-year, $54 million deal, thrilling their manager, who made no secret of the fact that he wanted a reunion. 

The Giants will nearly triple that deal to secure Chapman’s services through 2030, pairing him with Jung Hoo Lee, the only other player to get a six-year contract under Farhan Zaidi. The president of baseball operations will take part in a press conference with Chapman and Boras on Thursday morning, and perhaps that gives a hint of where ownership is leaning. 

Chapman watched Wednesday as the Giants dropped to four games under .500, and given how difficult the rest of the schedule is, there’s a real chance they end up somewhere in the mid-seventies in the win column. They already are double-digit games back of three other teams in their division, and the next few weeks figure to be filled with rumors about Zaidi’s job status. But ownership presumably followed his lead with one of the biggest decisions of his tenure, and in handing out the second-biggest contract in franchise history behind only Buster Posey’s extension. 

Zaidi made sure the Giants struck before the postseason started this time around. There will be time for Soto rumors and Blake Snell opt-out drama later, but for now, the Giants have brought one of their most important pieces back. After losing Posey and the Brandons, they have made sure the hitters’ room has a leader for years to come. 

Chapman is signed through 2030 and will make an even $25 million in each of the next six seasons. In 2025, he will get a $1 million signing bonus. Perhaps that was actually the “one” that his happy manager was referring to.

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