The New York Yankees are considering Oakland A’s 3B Matt Chapman … for shortstop

Buster Olney of ESPN appeared on The Michael Kay Show on ESPN 98.7 FM in New York City earlier this week and he reported that the New York Yankees are considering acquiring Oakland A’s third baseman Matt Chapman in a trade. However, the Yankees are apparently interested in using the two-time Platinum Glove Winner at shortstop.

Chapman, 28, has been the subject of trade rumors this offseason due to the Oakland A’s taking a step back this offseason and their past history of trading players one or two years before they hit free agency.

The New York Yankees are considering using Oakland A’s 3B Matt Chapman at shortstop

Matt Chapman has been a third baseman for his entire career with the Oakland A’s but his lack of experience at shortstop doesn’t mean that the New York Yankees won’t use him there.

Buster Olney of ESPN said that the Yankees “have talked a little bit…internally” about moving Chapman to shortstop despite playing very little at shortstop.

In his MLB career, Chapman has only played shortstop for a total of ten innings and he made one start there in 2020 but with the Yankees reportedly not wanting to spend a lot of money on one of the big free agent shortstops, a trade for Chapman is not as off the wall as you may think.

While Chapman hasn’t played shortstop much, he is, arguably, the best defensive player in all of baseball and likely still would be good at shortstop on defense. Currently, the Yankees have DJ LeMahieu at the top of their depth chart at third base but given his age and lack of experience at shortstop himself (four career innings there and no appearances since 2014), he is at third base and Gio Urshela, who isn’t a natural shortstop, is at the top of the depth chart at short.

However, any of the three would likely be better than the unmitigated disaster that was Gleyber Torres at shortstop. Between shortstop and second base, he had -12 Defensive Runs Saved (DRS), including -10 DRS at shortstop in just 108 games.

When Chapman is hitting well, he could be a breath of fresh air for the “three true outcomes” heavy lineup that the Yankees currently have but in 2021, Chapman did that himself too. He had the three true outcomes (walk, strikeout, or home run) happen in 49.7 percent of his plate appearances in 2021.

The Yankees are seemingly trying to fit a square peg into a round hole and, while sometimes that works (e.g. DJ LeMahieu), many times it does not.