Baseball’s offseason is about to get busier and the Blue Jays made two noteworthy moves on Monday as the five days known as the quiet period came to a close.
As expected, the Blue Jays gave free agent Matt Chapman the qualifying offer (“QO”), valued at $20.325 million. And, on another matter of offseason business, the Blue Jays picked up the two-year, $21 million club option on reliever Chad Green.
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The QO is a one-year contract worth the mean salary of MLB’s 125 highest-paid players and can be offered to free agents who have never received it before and who spent their entire season on the offering team’s roster.
If Chapman accepts the offer, he will remain with the Blue Jays for the 2024 season. If he declines the offer and signs elsewhere, the Blue Jays will receive a compensation draft pick. Because the Blue Jays went over the competitive balance tax threshold in 2023, their additional draft pick would come after the conclusion of the fourth round.
ROSTER MOVES:
🔹 We've acquired LHP Brendon Little from the Cubs in exchange for cash considerations. He has been selected to the 40-man roster
🔹 RHP Mitch White selected to the 40-man roster
🔹 3B Matt Chapman extended a Qualifying Offer pic.twitter.com/u6FciGeoCy
— Toronto Blue Jays (@BlueJays) November 6, 2023
Chapman has until Nov. 14 at 4 p.m. ET to either accept or decline the offer — but the most likely outcome is that he will decline it and test free agency.
While Chapman’s 2023 season was uneven offensively, with an outstanding April helping to prop up his overall season numbers, the 30-year-old third baseman remains elite defensively — he won his fourth Gold Glove on Sunday — and is one of the top free agents available this winter in what’s been deemed a weak position player market. Indeed, The Athletic ranked Chapman as the eighth-best free agent overall and third-best position player behind Shohei Ohtani and Cody Bellinger.
In addition to being well-placed in a shallow market, Chapman is represented by agent Scott Boras, who is known for finding lucrative deals for his clients. For a player, the downside of declining a QO, however, is that it attaches a draft-pick penalty to a player’s signing. Being forced to forfeit a draft pick to sign a particular free agent can act as a deterrent for some teams.
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Even with a draft penalty attached to him, Chapman should be positioned well to receive a valuable longer-term deal. The Athletic’s Tim Britton projected a five-year, $95-million deal for Chapman. His best potential fits include the reigning NL champion Arizona Diamondbacks, the Chicago Cubs, the Detroit Tigers, the San Francisco Giants or returning to the Blue Jays, where Chapman put up a .756 OPS over the past two seasons.
For the Blue Jays, it’s a smart decision to extend Chapman the QO because it protects them from a scenario where he walks away and they get nothing back. If the expected outcome unfolds and Chapman indeed declines the offer, the third baseman could still re-sign with the Blue Jays on a separate deal. But if he signs with another club, the Blue Jays at least gain the extra draft pick.
Chapman’s free-agent case is interesting. On the one hand, at the plate he still sports elite exit velocity numbers and the overall strength is there, but he has a lot of swing-and-miss in his game, despite a fairly discerning approach. This past season, after posting a monster 1.152 OPS in April, he batted .205 with a .659 OPS in 113 games after May 1, a concerning in-season drop-off. Chapman also hasn’t posted a season-ending OPS over .800 since 2020. His play at third remains excellent, however, and he makes up a lot of overall value on the defensive end. As long as he keeps putting up above-average numbers at third base, he’s a valuable everyday player even if he’s not posting a high batting average or on-base percentage.
But the Blue Jays will need to decide if they want to bring back Chapman, who is well-liked in the clubhouse, in the hopes he can find more consistency at the plate or whether they’re better off allocating the near $100 million or so it might take to sign him elsewhere — such as to a right-handed bat with power or to a corner outfielder.
If Chapman moves on from the Blue Jays, it’ll create a gaping hole at the hot corner. The Blue Jays don’t have a ready-made third base replacement, with their internal options ranging from utility guys like Cavan Biggio and Santiago Espinal to the young Davis Schneider or prospects like Addison Barger and Orelvis Martinez, neither of whom has played in the major leagues. It would be an especially tough assignment to task a rookie to replace Chapman and none of the other players listed appear to be ideal 162-game solutions.
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There is realistically no replacing Chapman’s stellar defence, so the Blue Jays in all likelihood will take a step back defensively on the left side of the infield, but signing someone like free agent Jeimer Candelario is a decent alternative, while a veteran like Justin Turner could serve as a stop-gap solution for 2024 before one of Barger or Martinez potentially emerges as an everyday candidate in 2025.
In another bit of offseason maneuvering, the Blue Jays exercised their two-year conditional club option on Green, which will pay him $21 million and keep the right-hander in their bullpen for the 2024 and 2025 seasons.
ROSTER UPDATE:
🔹 We've exercised our two-year conditional club option on RHP Chad Green for the 2024 and 2025 seasons pic.twitter.com/Ji6661knTr
— Toronto Blue Jays (@BlueJays) November 6, 2023
The right-handed reliever, who returned from Tommy John surgery in September and pitched only 12 innings in 2023, signed a complicated contract with the Blue Jays last offseason. It included a three-year, $27 million club option that the team declined. Green then had a one-year, $6.5 million player option, which he also declined. The Blue Jays then had a final two-year, $21 million club option, which they picked up.
At $10.5 million per year, the two-year pact pays Green the highest annual average value of the three options, but it’s also a two-year commitment for a 32-year-old reliever who is only a year removed from major surgery, a term the team is likely most comfortable with.
Green looks like he can be a central piece to Toronto’s bullpen over the next couple of seasons. His 5.25 ERA this season was inflated because of an ugly first outing against the Colorado Rockies, but he was largely effective in a set-up role while his peripheral numbers were promising, including a 30.8 percent strikeout rate, a 7.7 percent walk rate and a 95 mph average fastball velocity that’s in line with recent career norms.
In two more minor transactions Monday, the Blue Jays acquired left-handed pitcher Brendon Little from the Cubs for cash. Little was added to the 40-man roster, as was right-handed pitcher Mitch White. The GM meetings begin Tuesday in Scottsdale, Ariz., which may bring more offseason moves for the Blue Jays.
(Photo of Chapman: Eric Christian Smith / Associated Press)
