Are the Blue Jays Close to a Matt Chapman Breakout?

Expected stats show Matt Chapman is close to an offensive breakout, but there may be other factors hurting him in the box this season.

With two on in the eighth inning, Matt Chapman threw his bat at an Aaron Loup fastball away.

The pitch was poked into right field, diving toward the grass destined for a two-out hit. Closing in on the ball, Angels outfielder Juan Lagares held up, not fully committing to the dive before swiping at the liner and falling to the ground. As the ball bounced around Los Angeles’ grass, Chapman coasted into third, cashing the tying and go ahead Blue Jay runs.

Another second in the air, or a smoother defensive play, and the Chapman liner is probably caught. But according to his expected stats, Toronto’s third basemen is owed a few of those falling in.

No third basemen has a bigger difference between expected wOBA vs actual wOBA (an all-encompassing offensive stat) than Chapman this year. Through 473 games, the 29-year-old is hitting .200, but his quality of contact shows an expected batting average of .248. He also has 20 fly balls hit over 320 feet that have found gloves (sixth-most in baseball).

Is the discrepancy between his true and expected numbers a sign of an impending breakout? Or is there something else at work with Chapman’s bizarre start to 2022?

"I feel like I'm swinging at the right pitches," Chapman said. "And when I swing at the ball, for the most part, I'm hitting balls hard. I feel like I've been unlucky and some of the balls I've hit on the nose have been right back guys, or I've just missed it. So I feel like I'm right there."

Look under the hood and Chapman is doing everything right in the batter's box, it appears. His hard-hit rate is at an all-time high and he's chasing fewer rogue pitches than ever before. The strikeout rate is 6.5% lower than his 2021 mark and his walk rate is over 2% better than his career average. But the balls in play aren't finding grass or the other side of the outfield wall.

"Am I putting my best swing on it?" Chapman said. "For the most part, a lot of the times, I am, and I'm like 'damn, I'm right there.' But I think that also gives me confidence."

Chapman knows he's hitting .200, but also knows if a handful of his hard-hit outs dropped for hits, the numbers look a lot better. He calls it "right on the cusp" of where he wants to be.

Data From Baseball Savant

With the game tied in Tampa Bay on May 14th, Chapman stepped in for his eighth-inning at-bat. After taking a first-pitch strike, Chapman caught a slider hanging at the bottom of the zone, tattooing a fly ball into the right field gap. As the 100 MPH smash reached the Tropicana warning track, it fell out of the air, diving down before the wall and into the glove of Vidal Brujan 379 feet from home plate.

While the loud outs are frustrating, they also tell Chapman he doesn't need a massive swing overhaul, the infielder said. The work is fine-tuning, he says, specifically locking in his timing to avoid just missing mashable pitches.

“It’s like, how do I hit this ball even more on the nose?” Chapman said.

Finding those extra few feet on the deep fly balls might not be totally under Chapman's control, though, with a changed baseball environment factoring in. Whether it be because of a changed baseball or universal humidors in every park, baseballs are experiencing increased drag after contact in 2022. The higher drag causes fly balls to have less carry than usual, dying at the warning track, and per Blue Jays hitting coach Hunter Mense, Chapman has a swing more conducive to drag than most.

Chapman has what Mense calls a "flatter swing." It helps him fight off the high fastballs he's been fed for most of his career, but also creates more spin on balls not perfectly squared up, in turn leading to higher drag. With his bat speed, the drag hasn't normally been an issue, but in 2022 those high-drag fly balls aren't leaving the park anymore. Chapman's fly balls are turning into homers 4% less than his career norm and almost half as often as compared to his 2022 HR/FB rate.

Chapman is open to slight mechanical tweaks, adapting to 2022 to find those extra 10 feet over the wall. But the question becomes what are those changes, and how to make them without hindering his approach or zapping everything positive that the expected stats signal.

If it all comes together, mixed in with elite defense at the hot corner, the Chapman breakout is inevitable.