The change that is driving Matt Chapman's hot start

Matt Chapman put a target on right field long before the season started. And he's not missing.

Chapman's scorching start to 2023 has been driven by one thing above all else: elite opposite-field power. He looks like a lefty slugger in the right-handed batter's box.

The Blue Jays third baseman said he was going to do this, when he made the adjustment that let him unlock the right side of the field: switching from a leg kick to a toe tap in his swing, motivated by his low batting average and high strikeout totals in his first year in Toronto and final year in Oakland.

"I wasn’t making enough contact, I wasn't driving the ball to right field and wasn't behind the baseball as much," Chapman told Sportsnet early in Spring Training. "I was kind of out and around and pulling the ball a lot. I wanted to get back to being able to use the whole field and be even more athletic in the box. I know I’m better than that."

Now he's proving that he is. Everything Chapman envisioned when he tweaked his swing has come to fruition early in 2023 -- setting him up for a big season that would cement him as one of the headlining free agents of this year's class.

Here's the spray chart of Chapman's hits this season. Nearly half of them are to the right side of the field, including four home runs and nine extra-base hits.

That's more extra-base hits to the right side of the field than he had all of last season and the season before that. The last time Chapman had opposite-field power like this was in 2018 and '19, the best offensive seasons of his career.

Chapman's XBH to right side of field, by year
For full seasons of his career
2018: 17 XBH (3 HR) in 145 games
2019: 25 XBH (10 HR) in 156 games
2021: 6 XBH (3 HR) in 151 games
2022: 5 XBH (0 HR) in 155 games
2023: 9 XBH (4 HR) in 21 games

And that was the whole point of his offseason adjustments.

“I'm really just trying to get back to what I feel like made me successful," Chapman said. "I feel like I drove the ball the other way a lot if you look back to previous years. It's something I might have gotten away from over the last couple of years, and I'm just trying to get back to what made me a successful hitter in the past."

Chapman's nine extra-base hits to the right side are the most by any right-handed hitter, and more than nearly every left-handed hitter, too. He has more than lefty sluggers like Cody Bellinger, Matt Olson, Kyle Tucker, Juan Soto, Yordan Alvarez and Rafael Devers. His slugging percentage to the right side of the field is the highest in the Majors.

Highest SLG to right side of field, 2023
Min. 20 balls hit to right side

1. Matt Chapman: 1.304
2. Max Muncy: 1.250
3. James Outman: 1.179
4. Josh Lowe: 1.156
5. Jack Suwinski: 1.083

"I worked on it in the offseason. It's something I had always done," Chapman said. "If you look back to the Minor Leagues or earlier in my career -- in 2017, '18 and '19, even '20 before I had hip surgery -- I was driving the ball to right field and everywhere. To be able to be healthy and trust that I still can do that, after working on it pretty hard, it’s nice to see those results for sure."

Of the 23 balls Chapman has hit to the right side of the field, 18 have been hard-hit -- 95 mph or harder off the bat. Thirteen of those hard-hit balls have also been in the launch angle sweet spot of 8-32 degrees, which covers the line drives and home runs where hitters do the most damage.

Highest hard-hit + sweet-spot % to right side of field, 2023
Min. 20 balls hit to right side of field

1. Matt Chapman: 56.5%
2. Randy Arozarena: 41.4%
3. Jason Heyward: 38.5%
4. Matt Carpenter: 38.1%
5. J.D. Martinez: 37.5%

Chapman's average exit velocity when hitting the ball to the right side of the field is 99.0 mph. The only slugger ahead of him is one of the lefty kings of pull power, Joey Gallo.

This isn't just important for Chapman as an individual hitter. It's important for the Blue Jays in particular, whose adjustments to the Rogers Centre dimensions included moving the right-center-field fence 16 feet closer -- exactly where Chapman is driving the ball.

Chapman could have had three extra homers last season if the Rogers Centre dimensions were what they are now. Imagine the power totals he could add now that he's crushing balls to right-center with regularity.

Chapman is leading the charge, but the Blue Jays have taken a team-wide all-fields approach, which has helped power the strong starts for their other star hitters like Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette.

Guerrero has a pair of opposite-field homers, and Bichette has been spraying base hits the other way all season, as he leads the American League in hits for a third straight year. Toronto's right-handed hitters have 67 hits to the right side of the field, more than any other team, including 17 extra-base hits and seven home runs.

“It makes our team really tough," Chapman said. "You look at George [Springer], Bo, Vladdy, they’re elite. They use the whole field. Watching those guys work and what they do, and then you look at the course of history with [Miguel Cabrera] and all of these really good hitters -- they all use the whole field."

Keegan Matheson contributed reporting to this story.