Law: Blue Jays buy low on Matt Chapman with a four-player package returned to A's - The Athletic

The Blue Jays missed the playoffs by just one game in 2021, and even with the expansion of the postseason for 2022, they are clearly determined not to let that repeat this year, signing Kevin Gausman before the lockout and now addressing their void at the hot corner by sending four players to Oakland for third baseman Matt Chapman.

Toronto got less production from third base than any other position in 2021, playing way too much of Cavan Biggio there, so targeting Chapman addressed its biggest offensive need and also allows it to shore up its infield defense, as well.

Chapman had his worst year in the majors in 2021 and was still worth 3.5 wins above replacement, thanks to still-elite defense (his OAA was fourth-best in the majors among all positions in 2021) and a combination of patience and power at the plate. He was also second in the majors in strikeouts with 202, carrying over much of the big spike in his strikeout rate we saw in the pandemic year, and lost a lot of his contact quality from previous years. There’s no one smoking gun in his dropoff — he’s missing more offspeed stuff, hitting fastballs hard less often, and making less contact in-zone and out. He did struggle more with pitches that Statcast classified as sinkers than with any other pitch type, relative to his peak years, with nearly twice the swing-and-miss rate and half the hard-hit rates he had in 2018-19.

source: https://theathletic.com/3189913/2022/03/16/law-blue-jays-buy-low-on-matt-chapman-with-a-four-player-package-returned-to-as/

Your content is great. However, if any of the content contained herein violates any rights of yours, including those of copyright, please contact us immediately by e-mail at media[@]kissrpr.com.