SAN FRANCISCO -- Until 10:20 p.m. on Wednesday night, the most exciting September development for the Giants organization had come thousands of miles from Oracle Park.
Top prospect Bryce Eldridge was promoted from High-A to Double-A earlier this week, putting the powerful first baseman in position to potentially make his big league debut as a 20-year-old at some point next season. If Eldridge ends up being as good as the Giants think he will be, they should have their corners set for a long, long time.
Time will tell if the $151 million extension that Matt Chapman agreed to late Wednesday will prove to be a bargain, a solid deal or an overpay, but as the Giants prepare for the latest in a long line of important offseason, they at least can start to embrace some stability. That's been missing for most of the last five years.
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Chapman is signed through 2030 and Jung Hoo Lee through 2029. Heliot Ramos, Patrick Bailey and Tyler Fitzgerald are under team control through 2029, and if either Luis Matos or Marco Luciano pan out, they'll be on the same timetable. Logan Webb signed an extension last year that will take him through the 2028 season and Kyle Harrison and Hayden Birdsong are years away from even being arbitration-eligible. Camilo Doval will soon start to get arbitration raises, but Ryan Walker isn't arb-eligible until 2027.
It's not a championship roster, and at this point, it's not even a playoff roster, but the Giants at least have the makings of a core coming together. Keeping Chapman was crucial to that effort both on and off the field.
"It's just nice to have a puzzle piece at a position that can be as challenging as third base locked down," Zaidi told NBC Sports Bay Area. "It sort of becomes this additive thing when you think about Jung Hoo coming back and you think about Fitzgerald and Ramos stepping up and you start getting really excited. I talked to (manager Bob Melvin) about the same thing, that we have some real pieces that we can start planning around and we can be a little bit out of this transition phase of going from veteran players to younger guys.
"Matt is the perfect veteran leader for the clubhouse. In a lot of ways he's going to be what Logan Webb has been for us on the pitching side the last couple of years, and again those building blocks and players that fans can identify with that are going to be here for a long time, that's important for the connection with the fans as well."
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It's been a few years since fans could walk into the team shop on Third Street and comfortably buy a jersey knowing the player would be around in three years, or even the next spring. The seats at the ballpark are still filled with 28s, 35s, 40s and 55s, but the Lee signing did make an impact. He's easily the most popular jersey choice among the newcomers, and it surely helps that Giants fans know he's not going anywhere anytime soon. Lee did get an opt-out in his deal, but it won't be available to him until after the 2027 season.
Long term, the Giants finally seem to have a plan in place, although there's plenty of work to do. Thursday's walk-off win got them to just 69-72 and they're 7 1/2 games out of the final playoff spot. They also are double-digit games behind three other teams in their division, and none of them seem like they're headed for a drop-off.
That's another reason the Chapman deal was vital. The Giants will spend the start of their offseason dealing with Blake Snell's expected opt-out, and they'll have to decide whether they're ready to be involved if the bidding gets into nine figures, as it likely will. They'll poke around on Juan Soto, although they'll be heavy underdogs. The roster has no shortage of holes that will need to be filled, but the front office at least knows that negotiating with Chapman won't take up any time this winter.
The third baseman is signed through the age of 37, and while that's a bit of a scary proposition for any position player, the Giants are strong believers in Chapman's conditioning and diligence (perhaps he was sending a message by attending his press conference in a sleeveless shirt). The organization also believes the defensive skills will carry him throughout the deal even as other tools start to decline. Zaidi compared Chapman to Adrian Beltre, who played third base until he was 39 years old.
"We expect fully the same thing from Matt," he said.
Chapman has been remarkably durable, and it was difficult for him to take even a day off Wednesday to complete the contract and undergo a physical. He has missed just four games, although the daily production hasn't been enough to get the Giants over the hump. It'll be a steep climb at this point even to finish the year at .500
A few weeks before the negotiations started with Chapman, Zaidi mostly stood pat at the deadline in hopes of making a playoff run. He said the recent play has "been disappointing."
"We felt like the way the race was shaping up, and we talked about it at the deadline, that one good streak could get us right back into it and it hasn't happened," he said. "I think for us it's important to not get too bogged down on that and think about the big picture and think about what this thing can be the rest of the season, next year, the next few years, and that's kind of the spirit of this deal."
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