On the Mount Rushmore of problems for the 2026 San Francisco Giants, Rafael Devers and Willy Adames are George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. There’s T.J. peeking over George’s shoulder as they both look towards different points in the distance. Abraham Lincoln, engraved on the far right, is perhaps the back-end of the rotation, Tyler Mahle and/or just Adrian Houser, or maybe even Tony Vitello. Take your pick. But sandwiched between those massive granite domes, tucked in the back pitch of the rock
face, is Teddy Roosevelt — or for our purposes: Matt Chapman.
Chapman is no longer a fresh face. His contract has been exceeded now on two different occasions since its extension in September 2024. He doesn’t have a negative WAR or 50% below average wRC+, nor are his shoulders burdened with fresh expectation like Devers’ and Adames’ are. His elite defense, even in a somewhat subdued form, still sparkles, and helps maintain his value.
But what has always elevated his game, separating him from other elite defenders, is his batting metrics. A straightforward and disciplined approach in the box, coupled with a fast swing, has produced year-after-year hard contact. His average exit velocity has been in the top-10% in seven of his last nine seasons. He’s posted a top-10% Hard-Hit rate in five of those years, including a league-leading 56.4% in 2023. Like many in the league, Chapman doesn’t hit for average, but since he hits the ball hard, when his hits fall they mean more. He had a career .218 ISO with a .342 rOBA (Baseball Ref’s version of wOBA) going into the 2026 season.
These aren’t elite numbers, but they’re more than solid, and a big reason why the Giants went after him in 2024 and extended him for six years a couple months later is how solid and consistent he’s been on both sides of the baseball.
But not in 2026.
This hard-hitting but disciplined-approach type of production is completely absent from the Giants offensive profile as a team. There’s a Matt Chapman shaped hole in the middle of the Giants line-up, and Matt Chapman isn’t filling it.
Over the six game road trip, Chapman recorded just two hits in 24 at-bats while striking out 12 times, including wearing a Golden Sombrero in game 1 of the Philly series. He looked just as hapless in Tampa. In the 4th inning on Saturday, he jumped after an elevated 3-2 fastball that led to a strikeout-caught stealing double play when a more disciplined take would’ve put two runners on with one out. With a runner on second in the 6th, he half-heartedly hacked at an inside sinker to end a scoring threat, and in the 9th on Friday, he waved a white flag at a change-up right down the middle.
Before his average plummeted this past week, hits were finding their way onto the outfield grass, but by way of holes in the infield not gaps in the outfield. He had a .271 average (118 AB) with just a .364 slugging through April. Over three hitless games so far in May, his OPS has fallen from .717 to .655. He still has just one homer to his name — he’s never hit less than 4 in March/April. His .093 ISO was the lowest of his career over the first month of the season.
This isn’t tough luck either. Chapman isn’t hitting for power because everything about how he is hitting a baseball is off. Barrel rate, Hard-Hit rate, Launch Angle-Sweet Spot — it’s all waaaaaay down. His 7.1 launch angle is 10 degrees lower than his career figure, which explains his elevated groundball rate (53%, career 38%) and subdued flyball numbers (29%, career 46%).
So far, when has been at his best, Chapman’s quality of contact has looked more like Luis Arraez or Jung Hoo Lee than anybody else. That’s a problem because the Giants don’t need more of those types of hitters. An effective and dangerous line-up is balanced. It works like a seesaw. Overload one side with too many of one type of batter, and the seesaw becomes a very uncomfortable and impractical bench. An offense should slap and sting. Chapman has always been a stinger…but where art thou sting now?
I’m sure there’s more factors to help explain this devolution, but it doesn’t take too much digging to find one major problem: Chapman’s performance against fastballs.
Here’s his average, slugging, expected slugging, and launch angle off of fastballs in the previous three seasons:
2023: .255/ .474/ .508/ 21 degrees
2024: .258/ .464/ .483/ 16 degrees
2025: .246/ .424/ .437/ 17 degrees
And here it is 34 games into 2026: .275/ .333/ .283/ 4 degrees
So not only is Chapman putting up career worst numbers against the fastball, he’s also been a little lucky.
The precipitous launch angle drop speaks volumes. He’s out of sync, not meeting the ball where he wants to, and driving the ball into the ground, which is not where you want the baseball to go if you want to hit a home run. As a hitter in general, if you are getting beat by the fastball, you start to question your whole plate approach. In recent at-bats, you can tell Chapman is nothing but a vessel of doubt at the plate. He looks tentative and unconvinced. He doesn’t trust himself against the heater, so he’s trying to cheat on it. He’s guessing. He’s sweatin’ and stressin’ the fastball, and because he’s sweatin’ and stressin’ the fastball, he’s become the easiest batter to throw a slider to.
