How Well Will Matt Chapman Age?

In Major League Baseball, as in life, aging is a process that comes for us all. Last year’s free agent class of Blake Snell, Jordan Montgomery, and Matt Chapman faced many questions regarding how well their performance would age as they went deeper into their 30s, resulting in all three players not signing contracts with their respective teams until the beginning of spring training. I had questions about how well Matt Chapman’s production would age, and I posited on my Substack last offseason that his swing-and-miss issues against four-seam fastballs and a suboptimal batted ball profile might cause his offensive production to significantly decline throughout his 30s.

After signing a 3-yr/$54M contract with multiple opt-outs with San Francisco last offseason, Chapman has produced a bounce-back season in 2024, resulting in him signing a 6-yr/$151M extension with a full no-trade clause with the Giants on September 4th, solidifying his role as San Francisco’s starting third baseman for the foreseeable future. This article will look at the changes that Matt Chapman made to his offensive approach heading into the 2024 season, and will once again attempt to assess how well Chapman will age over the course of his new contract.

 

Overview

Known for his elite defense and power-hitting ability, Chapman has been regarded as one of the best third basemen in all of Major League Baseball since making his debut with the Oakland Athletics in 2017. Chapman produced two seasons with at least 5.0 fWAR with the Athletics before being traded to the Blue Jays before the start of the 2022 season. While his offensive production declined during his stint in Toronto, Chapman has produced a bounce-back season during his debut season in San Francisco, totalling 5.4 fWAR which is his highest level of overall production since the 2019 season.

As shown by the table above, Chapman has consistently hit the ball hard over the past three seasons, with at least two seasons of a hard hit rate greater than 50% and three straight seasons of at least a 12% barrel rate, which when combined with plus defense at third base, allows for Chapman to consistently produce at least 3.0 fWAR each year. While Chapman posted two solid seasons with Toronto, there were some concerns about how well Chapman would age as he entered the open market, resulting in him not signing with San Francisco until the beginning of March.

The primary two concerns regarding Chapman were:

• His struggles making contact against four-seam fastballs, particularly on those located up in the zone
• His declining ability to pull the ball in the air

Focusing on his struggles making contact with four-seam fastballs first, Chapman has displayed a weakness in regards to swing-and-miss against four-seam fastballs since the conclusion of the 2019 season. This “hole” against four-seam fastballs coincided with an increase in his swinging strike and strikeout rates which lowered his overall offensive ceiling over the past couple of seasons relative to his 2018-19 peak. Since hitter’s contact rates tend to decrease as they get older, many analysts including myself hypothesized that such a weakness could be easily exploited as Chapman aged, resulting in an increased strikeout rate and an inability to make enough contact to tap into his raw power in-game.

As shown by the table above, Chapman produced a 35.2% whiff rate against four-seam fastballs in 2023 which was likely a main contributor to the increase in swinging strike rate and decrease in zone contact rate that he experienced last season. This season, Chapman has made an impressive adjustment regarding his ability to make contact against four-seam fastballs, lowering his whiff rate against four-seamers to 26.1%, while also making improvements in his swinging strike rate, zone contact rate, and out-of-zone contact rate. Not only is the improved ability against four-seam fastballs impressive but Chapman’s improved overall contact ability provides optimism that he will be able to age more gracefully as a hitter, with the potential of 1-2 more peak seasons remaining in his bat moving forward.

As shown by the heat maps above, most of Chapman’s swing-and-miss against four-seam fastballs during the 2023 seasons occurred on pitches located at the top of the strike zone, particularly up-and-away. This provided opposing pitchers with an easy gameplan to utilize against Chapman, as four-seamers up-and-away would frequently result in either called strikes or whiffs. While Chapman still has a bit of a weakness at making contact on four-seamers upstairs, he has closed the “hole” that was present up-and-away over the past season which has allowed him to improve his performance against four-seam fastballs.

How did Chapman make this adjustment to improve against four-seamers? Chapman indicated in an interview earlier this season that he trusted his bat speed, and had a clear vision of what he needed to improve upon in order to produce a bounce-back season. As Chapman said in an interview with Eno Sarris and Andrew Baggarly, “I don’t have to try to speed up to get to the ball. Just know that I’m quick and let my hands work, not my body. Right now we’re trying to get me to feel very direct and on top of the baseball – shortening it up and letting the length and speed happen out front instead of behind.” Chapman’s improved contact ability against four-seam fastballs is an example of how bat tracking data can help improve offensive performance, by not just analyzing how fast a hitter is swinging but by identifying specific aspects of a hitter’s offensive approach that they need to improve upon in order to reach their ceiling of offensive production.

Another point of concern regarding Chapman’s offensive profile entering 2024 was the regression in his pull rate and his suboptimal batted ball profile. As I have written about in the past, pulling the ball in the air is the best way for a hitter to maximize their power production, given league-wide results on these batted balls as well as the lower bar of exit velocity required to hit the ball over the fence. From 2022 to 2023, Chapman’s pulled fly ball rate decreased from 9.4% to 4.3%, while his overall pull rate decreased from 47.7% to 39.3%.

While Chapman has the raw power necessary to hit for power to the opposite field, this suboptimal batted ball profile raised questions about how well Chapman’s offensive approach would age, especially once he begins to lose a tick in his ability to generate plus exit velocities, resulting in less power to the opposite field. In addition, the cavernous right field of Oracle Park also raised questions regarding how well Chapman’s offensive profile would age in San Francisco.

While his overall Pull% and FB% have decreased, Chapman has pulled the ball in the air with more frequency this season, with his Pulled FB% increasing from 4.3% in 2023 to 8.1% in 2024, and this improved batted ball profile has been a major contributor to Chapman’s offensive resurgence this season. While I believe it is a fair assumption to make that Chapman achieved this adjustment by altering his contact point to be more out in front of the plate (allowing him to pull more of his fly balls), it is impossible to confirm this assumption at the present moment due to the current unavailability of contact point metrics to the public. While not as high as the 12.5% Pulled FB% he produced in 2021, this improved batted ball profile provides optimism that Chapman can continue to produce for power moving forward, especially in a park with a large opposite field such as Oracle Park.

 

Moving Forward

While Matt Chapman was able to resist the aging curve in 2024 and produce a resurgent season at age 31, there are still some remaining questions regarding how well his offensive profile will age moving forward. One area of his offensive approach that he regressed in this season was his plate discipline, with his O-Swing% (chase rate) increasing from 19.7% to 22.8% and his Swing% increasing from 43.5% to 44.5%. While these metrics still grade as good plate discipline when compared to the rest of the league, it may be reasonable to be more bearish on Chapman’s walk rate projections moving forward if his increased aggression on pitches outside of the strike zone continues. While Chapman’s improved ability to make contact on all types of pitches, especially those outside of the strike zone, has been impressive, if these numbers regress to his career average next season, then it would be reasonable to project an increased strikeout rate for Chapman moving forward.

One promising development regarding Chapman’s offensive profile has been his bat speed, which appears to have improved this season relative to the past couple of years. Bat tracking data via Statcast is only publically available for the 2024 season, however, I was able to find a couple of posts from Tanner Stokey, Director of Hitting at Driveline Baseball, detailing the 2022 and 2023 Major League Baseball bat speed leaders from their internal calculations. While it has to be taken into consideration that I comparing two different systems of measurement, Chapman does not appear on the Top 10 leaderboards in 2022 and 2023, while he currently possesses the 6th fastest bat speed (76.6 MPH) in Major League Baseball among qualified hitters. Perhaps there has been no difference in Chapman’s bat speed and this is just a data discrepancy, or perhaps Chapman trained for bat speed to resist the aging curve in a similar manner to how J.D. Martinez did before a resurgent 2023 season. Bat speed regresses pretty dramatically after age 31, and there should be signal very early in the 2025 season regarding how well Chapman’s bat speed will age moving forward. Regardless, this top-tier bat speed provides Chapman with a cushion to regress upon, as he would still possess above-average bat speed if he lost a couple of ticks over the next few seasons.

In terms of positional value, Chapman projects to stay at third base for the foreseeable future. Chapman’s third base defense is still very good, and the 10 outs above average he has generated at the position this season is the most he has produced since 2021. From a WAR valuation perspective, this high level of defensive production that he has been able to generate at third base helps lower the offensive bar that he needs to clear in order to generate plus production, which should help him age more gracefully as he ventures through his 30s.

In conclusion, I believe that Matt Chapman still has at least one peak season remaining before he begins to experience a meaningful decline in production. The adjustments that he has made to his offensive approach this past season, particularly his improved contact ability against four-seamers and optimized batted ball profile, indicate that he has been actively working to combat the effects of aging, while his elite defense at third base provides a solid foundation for his overall value, even if his offensive production were to slightly decline. While it is realistic to expect some decline as Chapman ages, and there is inherent volatility in any player’s profile over the age of 30, Chapman’s overall skill set and recent improvements provide reason to believe that he will be well-positioned to provide value throughout the majority of his new contract.

Photos by Icon Sports Wire and WikiMedia Commons | Adapted by Carlos Leano