Matt Chapman gets his ‘giant’ deal - but did Scott Boras botch this offseason? | Baseball Bar-B-Cast
Yahoo Sports senior MLB analysts Jake Mintz and Jordan Shusterman discuss the third baseman’s deal to return to the Bay Area - this time in San Francisco - and whether his agent has been mishandling negotiations this winter. Hear the full conversation on “Baseball Bar-B-Cast” podcast - and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.
Video Transcript
JORDAN SHUSTERMAN: Matt Chapman is now on the San Francisco Giants. That sentence by itself is not especially shocking when you consider this was a spot in free agency, a match at the beginning of the offseason. We said, that could make some sense.
Three years, $54 million. The Giants hilariously announcing it as a one-year, $18 million deal, which I guess is technically true as Matt Chapman will have opt-outs after the first two years of the deal. This is essentially the same deal that Cody Bellinger got except $26 million fewer.
This is a very, very interesting deal and an incredible win as far as a staring contest goes for the Giants with Matt Chapman in the same way that the Cubs kind of won with Cody Bellinger.
JAME MINTZ: Did Boras really wait this out to get Matt Chapman Michael Wacha money? Because that's what this is. This is not what Scott Boras was probably telling Matt Chapman was going to happen.
JORDAN SHUSTERMAN: No.
JAME MINTZ: And in talking to people around the game about Boras and this offseason, you get some interesting stuff, OK? And I think the biggest one is that Boras's tact of waiting out the market only works when you have the big bosses. So, like, when he did this with Harper, Harper was going to get his money because he's Harper. You are not going to wait teams out.
And what I think we've seen with Bellinger and and Chapman and what we will eventually see with Snell-- more than Montgomery, in my opinion-- is Boras misunderstanding the market this year. I think that's the only way you can swing it. He's going-- you know, he's going to spin it a different direction when he sits down at the press conference, obviously, but I'm skeptical. There is no way that he's happy about this.
JORDAN SHUSTERMAN: For players like Matt Chapman and Cody Bellinger who come with red flags-- and we're going to see how this impacts the pitchers. But really what it is when free agency drags this long is, Do the teams need the players more than the players need them? And that is really the waiting game that we really see.
And essentially what ended up happening is Matt Chapman and Cody Bellinger decided they needed teams more than the teams needed them. Teams can just say, you know what? Like, we don't need this guy. We don't. And, unfortunately, with camps already starting and once you've already seen your team and you've already started to settle and you say, I like these young players. I like this depth chart. I like what we have. We don't need this. We don't need this. We don't need this. Yes, they're going to find teams eventually, but that's really the dynamic that we're talking about.
JAME MINTZ: If the reigning Cy Young is not signed on March 4, that is a problem. That is bad. That is a bad look for the sport and shows that the system is broken and wonky and something is amiss.
