SAN FRANCISCO — In between his late scratch from the Giants’ lineup Wednesday night and the announcement of his six-year, $151 million extension a few hours later, Matt Chapman didn’t know what to do with himself. Through 140 games this season, it was only the fourth time he was forced to watch from the bench.
The 31-year-old third baseman took in the first few innings from the third-base dugout, then headed down the tunnel to take care of more important matters. He had to pass a physical and sign the dotted line that secured his spot in San Francisco’s lineup through 2030.
“It was different,” Chapman said a day later, back in the cleanup spot, of his rare day off. “Obviously not ideal that I didn’t get to go out there and play with the guys. But obviously it was pretty important to get this thing done. But we got it done and now, chances are, I’m not going to be watching very much.”
The contract was the largest that Farhan Zaidi has negotiated in his six seasons as the Giants’ president of baseball operations, second only in franchise history to Buster Posey’s nine-year, $167 million extension in 2013. Paired with the $18 million he was paid this season, Chapman will earn $169 million over the course of his tenure in San Francisco, meeting or even exceeding the projections when he hit the free-agent market last winter.
The deal does not include any opt-out clauses and locks up Chapman through his age-37 season, but the Giants were comfortable taking that bet because of his durability, his defense and his clubhouse leadership that the team has lacked since Posey’s surprise retirement after 2021.
“Thinking back to why we were so excited to bring Matt here in the first place, I think he’s delivered all that and more,” Zaidi said. “Just in terms of our goals this past offseason of adding more consistency to the lineup, upgrading our defense, just having a guy who can be a leader on and off the field.”
Nobody understands or appreciates those qualities more than Bob Melvin, who has managed Chapman for all but two seasons of his career since he debuted for the A’s in 2017. Asked about Melvin’s presence, Chapman flashed a grin toward the skipper and said, “I guess having Bob here helped a little bit,” before adding, “that was a huge reason of me even wanting to come here in the first place.”
“The performance speaks for itself, but I think it’s a lot of the intangible things that make him who he is and make him such a great fit here,” Melvin said. “The style of play, the tenacity with which he plays, wants to post every day, plays hurt and never says anything about it.
“When you have your best players and your leaders playing a certain way, we have some younger guys here who are learning their way and developing right now, they watch the way he plays the game, there’s an expectation of how it needs to be played. When he’s setting the example for that, guys have to fall in line.”
Along with Chapman, the Giants have center fielder Jung Hoo Lee locked up through 2029 and the ace of their starting rotation, Logan Webb, through 2028. Other young players, such as shortstop Tyler Fitzgerald and left fielder Heliot Ramos, have emerged this season as building blocks for the future.
That core wasn’t enough to put them in playoff position entering the final month of this season, but Chapman said he believes the Giants have “the beginning of a championship-type ballclub year in and year out” — and that he has already heard from prospective free agents about joining him.
“I’ve already had people reach out to me saying now that I’m here, they want to come here,” he said. “I don’t think it’s going to be a hard sell.”
Despite only signing his initial contract midway through spring training, Chapman said San Francisco “feels like home” and “like I’ve been here a lot longer than just one season.” Melvin concurred, noting that he’s spoken up in hitters meetings and in the clubhouse, adding, “the respect that he gets, it’s just the perfect spot for him.”
Since his first days in the organization, the Victorville-born four-time Gold Glove winner has been adamant about making it his long-term home. The three-year, $54 million contract he signed March 3 included opt outs after each season, but he said days after inking it that he hoped it was “just the first step of a long tenure with the Giants.”
Chapman was forced to bet on himself when the contract he desired didn’t materialize last winter after a sprained finger forced him to miss the most time of his career and led to some of his worst offensive numbers. But he has rebounded this year, already surpassing last year’s totals in home runs (22), RBIs (69) and runs scored (90) with three weeks left to play and across-the-board improvements in his .247/.333/.445 batting line.
In mid-August, Chapman again publicly lobbied for a long-term deal, telling this news organization that he was “open” and “kind of just waiting on them.”
Perhaps it was no coincidence, then, that Zaidi said their negotiations began about two or three weeks ago.
Then again, Chapman had been trying to speak his new contract into existence since he signed his first one.
“I was thinking about when we signed the deal back in spring training, I think Matt commented the goal is to have a great year and to be talking about an extension in mid-August,” Zaidi said. “I think he nailed that to a tee.”
