This morning, Major League Baseball announced the finalists for the 2025 Silver Slugger Award, given to the 10 best hitters in each league by position (one player at each infield position, three outfielders, one DH, and one utility player). For the second year in a row, San Francisco Giants third baseman Matt Chapman, who posted a line of .231/.340/.430 in 128 games slugged with 21 home runs, is one of the NL Third Baseman finalists.
He is unlikely to win.
Now, before you jump down my throat, it’s pretty easy to see why: his numbers do not stack up against San Diego’s Manny Machado. He played in 159 games total, but 145 as third baseman, and it’s in those games he slashed .279/.339/.469 with 25 HR. So, on that basis alone, I’d say Chapman’s beat.
But, I suppose if one is to be generous — and this is a Giants site and so I should try to be in the case of a Giant — there’s a vibe component to the nomination process and a statistical note that could work in Chapman’s favor. Per MLB.com:
Position finalists and winners are determined by a vote of National League managers and coaches who cast ballots for players at each position in their league. Each NL team receives four (4) votes; the manager and three coaches of the team’s choice. Votes are based on a combination of offensive statistics including OPS, OPS+, home runs, RBI, batting average, total bases and runs, as well as the managers’ and coaches’ general impressions of a player’s overall offensive value.
Max Muncy (100 games, 136 OPS+) and Austin Riley (102 games, 103 wRC+) are the other two candidates, and it’s likely that Chapman falls behind Muncy in a pure ranking for this position. Alec Bohm (120 G, 102 OPS+) and Eugenio Suarez are the only other two third basemen with positive wRC+.
The OPS+ note is an interesting one. That gives Chapman a very slight edge over Manny Machado. Here’s the NL leaderboard for that:
Max Muncy (100 G), 136 OPS+
Matt Chapman (128 G), 120 OPS+
Manny Machado (145 G), 118 OPS+
Austin Riley (102 G), 105 OPS+
These are all four of the nominees for the award. The games played seem like enough of a separator to make it Chapman vs. Machado, in which case Machado’s lead in home runs, RBI, batting average, total bases and runs should be more than enough to net him his second consecutive Silver Slugger Award over Chapman.
On the other hand, MLB owes Matt Chapman for denying him a chance to win his third consecutive Gold Glove (and sixth overall). I’m still scratching my head over that one. It doesn’t make any sense.
For the curious, Eugenio Suarez would have been nominated (bumping Riley or Bohm) had he not been traded out of the National League. Along that line, Rafael Devers might have landed as a nominee for first base had he been with the Giants all season long… and played a lot of games at that position. His 140 OPS+ matches up nicely with Freddie Freeman (141), who is nominated there.
Anyway, this is just the fifth Silver Slugger finalist the Giants have had since 2020. That year, Donovan Solano won. Since then, Thairo Estrada and Joc Pederson received nominations in 2022 and Chapman has been the sole nominee the past two seasons.
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