SF Giants beat writer further complicates Matt Chapman contract saga

It wouldn't be a sizable SF Giants contract if there wasn't some sort of controversy surrounding it. After a recent report that seemed to suggest Buster Posey negotiated the Matt Chapman deal, a new report refutes that claim. Who do we believe?

Let's break this saga down. Andrew Baggarly of The Athletic wrote an article (subscription required) that painted a picture of the Giants ownership group being frustrated with president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi not locking down a Matt Chapman extension fast enough. Therefore, Buster Posey (a member of said ownership group) was tabbed to negotiate with Chapman directly to avoid a protracted standoff between Zaidi and Chapman's agent Scott Boras.

Today, an article (subscription required) by beat writers Susan Slusser and John Shea in the San Francisco Chronicle refutes that claim. They paint a picture of Zaidi and Boras being at the center of the deal with Buster Posey talking with Chapman but not driving negotiations as the Baggarly article made it seem. They also note that manager Bob Melvin was involved in the talks as well.

Matt Chapman deal provides Rashomon SF Giants style

Boras is quoted heavily in the Chronicle article. Naturally, he disagrees with Baggarly's characterization of the dealings. One would expect nothing less considering Baggarly's telling made both Boras and Zaidi appear irrelevant in a way and painted a picture of Posey cutting through all the noise and hammering out a deal player-to-player with Chapman. It did not make Boras look good which is bad for Boras.

So the question is why was Baggarly's account so different? We cannot know for sure, but I have a few ideas.

It seems clear that whatever sources Baggarly was speaking to in the organization are not fans of Zaidi. They clearly wanted to create the impression that Zaidi is ineffectual and irrelevant and that is exactly what many fans took away from the story.

Perhaps there is also part of Baggarly that wanted to feed that narrative. One could argue that his reporting last year played a part in fueling the narrative that manager Gabe Kapler was losing the clubhouse and led to his firing. Perhaps he feels that Zaidi needs to go and this article was a way of adding more fire to the flame calling for Zaidi's dismissal.

Surely there are elements of truth in both articles. No matter what, both seem to affirm that Zaidi's job security is very much in question. Even if one subscribes to Slusser's portrayal of a Zaidi who was actively involved in the Chapman talks even while he was in the hospital, that does not mean ownership has full confidence in him. Both articles note that ownership is either frustrated with or confused by Zaidi and his decisions.

The next few weeks are going to be very interesting. I am sure that there are going to be a lot of "sources" saying a lot of things about Farhan Zaidi's job. Only time will tell if the ownership group is willing to give Zaidi one last year to try and turn things around for this middling franchise.