When asked about playing his games without fans in the Colesium, A’s third baseman Matt Chapman took a shot at the fanbase.
The 2020 MLB season is going to have a different feel, and not just because of the rule changes and 60 game schedule. For most teams, fans will not be in the stands, leaving the game inside empty, and silent, stadiums. That roar of the crowd, the vocal encouragement, will be gone.
While that may be disconcerting for most teams and players, that is not the case with the A’s. In fact, Matt Chapman feels it could be an advantage, although he may have inadvertently called out the fanbase in saying so.
Oakland #A's third baseman Matt Chapman, when asked about playing in front of no fans tells @susanslusser & A's writers on zoom: "I think it's going to play to our advantage-a lot of our games are pretty quiet in general. We're used to not having too many fans at the games.''
— Bob Nightengale (@BNightengale) July 10, 2020
Essentially silent crowds? Not many fans at the games? Tell us how you really feel. Even if those statements were not intended to be a shot at A’s fans, it certainly seems as though Chapman has some frustrations with the fanbase.
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One can see why that would be the case. The A’s have only topped two million fans only once since 2006, doing so in 2014. In that time frame, their best finish in attendance was ninth, which happened in 2013. Meanwhile, the A’s finished last in attendance twice in that same time frame, and have continued to rank in the lower fifth of AL teams.
For Chapman, and other A’s players, this has to be a source of frustration. The A’s have a strong, younger team filled with exciting players. Chapman is one of the best third basemen in the game, and they have budding stars in Ramon Laureano and Matt Olson. Marcus Semien blossomed into an MVP candidate. Exciting youngsters Jesus Luzardo, A.J. Puk, and Sean Murphy are ready to show what they can do at the major league level.
Yet none of that seems to matter. Perhaps it is the ballpark, but the A’s simply do not draw fans to the stadium. This has been noticed by Chapman, and his not exactly subtle dig at the fanbase with his comments.
Matt Chapman thinks that the A’s will have an advantage playing in an empty stadium. In vocalizing his thoughts, he also took a shot at the fanbase.