Remaking the infield in Chapman’s image

The Giants owe it to him…and they might be closer than you think

Pardon my gush, but Matt Chapman is a god among men when it comes to defense.

Imagine Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel, not depicting the 16th century doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church, but the beliefs of the 2025 San Francisco Giants…at its frescoed center is Chapman’s mitt stretching out from the heavens to touch Adam, the Giants, to create them in his own likeness.

Defense won’t be the guiding principle when constructing their roster for the 2025 season, especially after a disappointing performance by the offense, but it needs to be a consideration. The missed opportunities with runners in scoring position loom large, but so do the missed chances on double plays, the ground balls that snuck through gaps in the infield, the forced throws, the mental blunders, the miscommunications that abound.

San Francisco pitchers produced a ground ball nearly 50% of the time this season. That’s an impressive trend you want to support with a great infield. The 4.20 team ERA ranks 21st in baseball, while their 3.88 FIP ranks 8th. The arms are doing their job in the sense that they aren’t handing out free bases or giving up home runs at an exorbitant rate, but they’re getting hurt elsewhere. That unfavorable discrepancy isn’t all on the defense—Giant pitching has been hit HARD—but it can certainly shoulder some of the blame. And the reality is while Matt Chapman has been awesome, Patrick Bailey has made his case for one of the best defensive backstops in the league, and Mike Yastrzemski has remained solid in right—the rest of the field has been in flux. Jung Hoo Lee went down, Nick Ahmed came and went, Thairo Estrada couldn’t stay healthy, nor hit.

Holes have been worn into the positional quilt, patches have sewn on, and worked…at least for a little while before fraying and needing patches of their own.

Locking up the hot corner with Chapman for the next six seasons will be a selling point to a certain degree to right-handed hitters, i.e. Oracle Park is not the offensive desert it has so often been perceived to be; but he’s a huge selling point to pitchers. Logan Webb and Blake Snell will certainly sing his praises if anyone asks, but their tune might fall flat if Chapman is surrounded by a bunch of thumbs. It doesn’t seem like a bad plan to try and minimize the thumbage. What would the next season’s defensive alignment look like if we were to let Chapman play God, to let him scratch his cleat into the infield of Oracle, spit into the loose dirt and, from its clay, form defenders in his image? Can the Giants cover their bases without completely embarrassing themselves?

First Base

Arizona’s Christian Walker, who’s won the gold glove at first the previous two seasons, will be a free agent in the offseason. If the Giants were going for total lockdown on the infield, he’d be a guy to pursue.

That’s unlikely to happen for a lot of reasons. LaMonte Wade Jr. has one more year of arbitration before he becomes a free agent. He’s been the ideal first baseman in the sense that we haven’t had to feel anxious about him or worry about him or think about him in anyway. He’s committed 1 error in 616.1 innings, good for a .998 fielding percentage, an improvement from 10 errors over 887.2 innings (.989 Fielding %) in 2023. He’s logged 7 Defensive Runs Saved and is in the positives in Outs Above Average and Fielding Run Value. Great.

Wilmer Flores has a player option for next season. There’s some comfort in Flores at first as a former middle infielder. He may have lost a step or two or five but there’s an instinct and feel that lingers as the body ages. Statistically he hasn’t been as sharp at first as he was in 2023 though some of that could be explained by his knee problems. A very geriatric concern…Flores might be the oldest 33 year old on the planet.

Jerar Encarnacion just made his first appearance at first yesterday and had a grounder shoot right through his legs.

He also hit a three-run homer so…

The field is crowded at first, and it will get even more crowded if Bryce Eldrige continues his current push through the farm system. At this point, it’d kind of be a bummer if the teenager (turning 20 in October) didn’t debut at some point in 2025. His bat is seasoned, but the former pitcher turned corner outfielder/first baseman has some work to do with the glove. The 23 homers hit at A, A+ and AA levels certainly outshine the 16 errors he’s committed at first.

With Chapman throwing across the diamond, not much in terms of gymnastics is required anyway—he usually hits whoever’s on first in the letters.

Shortstop

No one should be surprised that we’re in this position right now. Our franchise’s shortstop was ceremoniously but kinda unceremoniously shown the door last season—of course, Brandon Crawford’s shoes have been hard to fill. The role has been a carousel much like center field has been, with Nick Ahmed winning the role from Marco Luciano out of Spring Training, then Luciano losing the role again after successive double-play botches in Pittsburgh and New York, then came the brief Brett Wisely era, followed by the ascendency of Tyler Fitzgerald.

So here we are and it’s been mostly fine, but Fitzgerald has not been without his problems. He’s knocked outs out of mitts, he’s thrown to the wrong base. A misplay last Thursday nearly cost the Giants the game, and a wide throw on Friday did. His athleticism is his strongest asset, but it’s undermined by poor decision making and a bad arm. He’s made some impressive plays going up the middle, but he feels limited on grounders that force him towards third.

The rough edges could probably be smoothed over with more experience and club commitment making him the shortstop (note: lowercase) but would that be Chapman’s first choice? Wouldn’t it be better, and a lot easier and more efficient and more marketable to just have one of the best left-sides of the infield in baseball on Opening Day?

Path of least resistance. Simplest solution. Let’s just get Ha-Seong Kim. Everyone wants Ha-Seong Kim. He’s a Gold Glove winner with a better arm and more range than Fitzgerald or any of the other potential in-house options. Range is what the Giants need. Their -1 Statcast Range metric is 19th in the league. According to Fangraphs Range runs (RngR), which measures how well a team gets to the balls hit in their vicinity, San Francisco’s -12.3 mark is a tenth better than the worst in the Majors. I’m not sure how they measure all that but it’s a number that confirms what we’ve all witnessed. The infield isn’t patrolled by the fleetest of feet.

Kim has those feet. He’s posted 1.7 range runs above average over 1,000+ innings played at short this year—not the knockout number that he put up in 2022 when he was a Gold Glove finalist at short, but still an improvement on Fitzgerald’s 0.0. As the reigning NL Gold Glove winner at the utility position, Kim also provides flexibility around the infield if, god-forbid, Chapman takes a day off at third, or if things get desperate at second, or if the front office gets frisky and signs free agent SS Willy Adames too.

Added bonus: Jung Hoo Lee and Kim are good friends, and it’d make Jung Hoo Lee happy if the Giants signed his friend. The goal for 2025 should be to make Jung Hoo Lee happy.

Second base

Technically, Thairo Estrada could still be the answer here. Estrada remains in the organization after going unclaimed on waivers, and it’s possible the Giants could have a change of heart and shell out the pennies Estrada will fetch in arbitration. Statcast has loved Estrada at second, while Fangraphs metrics have been more lukewarm. Even with the varied data points, it’s safe to say Estrada has been in the conversation as one of the best defensive second basemen in the league over the past two seasons—if only he wasn’t one of the worst hitters in the league over that same span.

Maybe this story takes another turn in the offseason (they didn’t have to keep him around after he went unclaimed), but I’m not holding my breath. Estrada became dispensable because of his free-swinging plate antics. His recent placement on waivers and demotion to Sacramento were the result of the safety net provided by Brett Wisely/Casey Schmitt and the organization’s commitment to Marco Luciano, which makes sense given Luciano’s age and the amount of time/money the club has already put into his development…

But what has made Luciano into a conundrum rather than a solution so far is he’s player without a position. Could he be a corner outfielder? A first baseman? A DH? All we know is he’s not a shortstop.

Second base is a better fit for Luciano, but that doesn’t mean Luciano is fit for second. At least, not yet. Range is still an issue, and his hands have been like two frying pans in terms of softness and control. Over the brief 33 innings he’s played at second so far this season, he’s already been dinged by the number crunchers with a -2 Defensive Runs Saved, -2 Outs Above Average, and -1 Fielding Run Value.

I don’t know how seriously to take those numbers. The stats confirm what we already know…but over such a small sample size? Luciano hadn’t played the position professionally until this season. Sunday’s start was only his 25th of his career across the Triple-A and MLB levels. Far from defensively inclined, it’s ignorant to expect him to change his nature when a new role is sprung on him. Luciano will need more time in the pool to acclimate. Expect to see him a lot at second over the last three weeks of the regular season. How painful could the transition be?

As if to cosmically affirm my convictions and worries, Tyler Fitzgerald knocked the ball out of Luciano’s glove in the 7th on a routine pop-up—a collision and bone-headed blunder that threatened Sunday’s eventual win over the Padres.

Instead of the third out of an inning, two runs scored, allowing a red-hot Manny Machado to hit with a runner in scoring position. Luciano claimed he called the ball but was drowned out by the thunderous crowd at Petco. Looking at the replay, he waved his arms but didn’t appear particularly vocal when settling under the fly. To be fair: should he have to scream at the top of his lungs to claim a fly that was lobbed pretty much right at him? To most coaches of 13 and 14 year olds, the answer is an exasperated YES, doggone it! Fitzgerald, as the shortstop, has seniority. Its an infield hierarchy drilled into ball players from middle school designed to avoid embarrassment on problematic pop-ups. Unfortunately, that chain-of-command contributed to the problem yesterday. This pop-up became problematic because Fitz, as supposed “top dog”, got a little too big for his britches and strayed. Why he continues to insert himself in situations that have nothing to do with him is beyond me. In the eyes of the Big Marine back in the dugout, both were knuckleheads.

That kind of malarkey can not and will not abide in the Kingdom of Chapman. The Giants won’t be doing themselves any favors if those two are in the same infield. As the misplays mount, the need for Kim at short feels paramount. He’s the solution, allowing Fitzgerald to push over to second. The shorter distance will suit his arm better. The boot to the right side of the infield might help curtail his pop-up wanderings. What happens to Luciano in this situation? More ABs at DH, another year focusing on second base in Sacramento, filling in occasionally in the infield for injuries while Fitzgerald covers an outfield corner? That’s not Matt Chapman’s concern…

Chapman, Kim, and Fitzgerald around the horn. Divine? Certainly close, and much better than what has been cobbled together this year.