The Blue Jays and the Athletics complete a trade that will send a third baseman. Matt Chapman from Auckland to Toronto tweets John Morosi of MLB.com. He adds that the Jays are not expected to include any prospective members of their Opening Day roster in the deal. Former All-Star second baseman Carlos Baerga, who previously reported that the Jays had signed both. Yimi Garcia and (last off-season) Markus Semyonannounced for the first time on Instagram that a trade deal had been reached.
Chapman’s acquisition would give the Blue Jays not only one of the best third basemen in the game, but also one of the best defensemen in baseball in any position. Since Chapman’s 2017 Major League debut, his 88 defensive runs saved and 47.3 Ultimate Zone ratings are second only to Mookie Betts as well as Andrelton Simmons among all major league players. Statcast’s “Above Average Outs” score pretty much aligns with this: since 2017, he’s ranked tenth among all major league players, regardless of position. Indeed, Chapman was named the league’s best all-around defenseman twice, winning the league’s Platinum Glove.
Of course, Chapman is far from a player who only plays with gloves. From 2018 to 2019, he was a legitimate MVP candidate due to his combination of offensive and defensive abilities. The former 25th overall pick hit .263/.348/.507 with 60 home runs playing his home games at the cave-in Oakland Coliseum during those two seasons, finishing in the top 7 in American League MVP voting on both occasions.
Chapman’s offensive performance has plummeted over the last two seasons, in no small part due to a serious hip injury in 2020 that he struggled with before succumbing to surgery. This procedure both repaired the ruptured upper lip and “cleared” the head of his right femur. Although his performance has dwindled, Chapman still hits power (37 home runs, .216 ISO) and walks a lot (11.4%), but his strikeout rate is up from 22.8% in 2018/19 up to 33.1. % in 2020-21 Over the past two seasons, he’s posted a .215/.206/.431 batting average.
The Jays are no doubt betting that Chapman will recover to some degree from his September 2020 surgery, 18 months early. However, even if he doesn’t return to his 2018-19 season MVP tier, Chapman’s new three-true-outs version was still worth 3.5 wins compared to being replaced by both Baseball-Reference and FanGraphs last season. . He’s a clear upgrade for the Jays, who are looking to make deep progress in the postseason thanks to a dominant offense and a rotation that has improved by leaps and bounds in recent seasons.
Not all.