Episode 41: Breaking Down Bregman

[Brock Beauchamp]

Jason Ross and Brock Beauchamp analyze the five-year contract the Cubs gave to third baseman Alex Bregman just days after trading for Edward Cabrera. What does this mean for the Cubs' infield in 2026 and beyond, particularly Matt Shaw and Nico Hoerner?

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[Banks-Williams]

Matt Shaw is an excellent ball player. The plays he made at 3rd in 2025 were golden glove material.  All he needed to do was improve his hitting. 

The front leg movement added a completely unnecessary movement to his swing, which is an unnecessary variable. The only variables batters need to face are pitch speed, location, and break.  Any hitting coach could have explained such to him. That’s all he needed basically. 

I would not have replaced Shaw with the cheater.  I surely don’t  see better fielding, nor better hitting once Shaw comes around.   Too much $$ wasted too. And the cheating thing, I which I’ve already commented on.

Edited January 11 by Banks-Williams

[Rcal10]

19 hours ago, Banks-Williams said:

Matt Shaw is an excellent ball player. The plays he made at 3rd in 2025 were golden glove material.  All he needed to do was improve his hitting. 

The front leg movement added a completely unnecessary movement to his swing, which is an unnecessary variable. The only variables batters need to face are pitch speed, location, and break.  Any hitting coach could have explained such to him. That’s all he needed basically. 

I would not have replaced Shaw with the cheater.  I surely don’t  see better fielding, nor better hitting once Shaw comes around.   Too much $$ wasted too. And the cheating thing, I which I’ve already commented on.

They didn’t get rid of Shaw. He is still on the team and will probably get 300-400 AB next year. They just added an all star third baseman. I expect Shaw will be the 2nd baseman in ‘27. As far as your ridiculous rant on cheating goes, I don’t care. If I only wanted players who qualify for your moral high ground you are taking, I probably would field a team. All players do whatever they think will give them an advantage. I am sure there are players cheating right now. I can dislike a person as a human being but cheer for him as a ballplayer. I do find it interesting that your distain for Bregman yet say nothing about Shaw and his white supremist beliefs. Guess you are ok with that. Given the choice of the two I would take Bregman over Shaw all day long on the moral high ground debate. 

I have given up on worrying about players beliefs,, views or morals when evaluating them as players. I put them all in the same bucket with the belief none of them are people who should be role models. They just play baseball and if they are in my team I will cheer for them. One caveat to this view is criminal behavior such as domestic violence, etc….

[Banks-Williams]

5 hours ago, Rcal10 said:

They didn’t get rid of Shaw. He is still on the team and will probably get 300-400 AB next year. They just added an all star third baseman. I expect Shaw will be the 2nd baseman in ‘27. As far as your ridiculous rant on cheating goes, I don’t care. If I only wanted players who qualify for your moral high ground you are taking, I probably would field a team. All players do whatever they think will give them an advantage. I am sure there are players cheating right now. I can dislike a person as a human being but cheer for him as a ballplayer. I do find it interesting that your distain for Bregman yet say nothing about Shaw and his white supremist beliefs. Guess you are ok with that. Given the choice of the two I would take Bregman over Shaw all day long on the moral high ground debate. 

I have given up on worrying about players beliefs,, views or morals when evaluating them as players. I put them all in the same bucket with the belief none of them are people who should be role models. They just play baseball and if they are in my team I will cheer for them. One caveat to this view is criminal behavior such as domestic violence, etc….

Woah!  So you can read Shaw’s mind. You know that he has “white supremist beliefs” or is there a public statement where he confirms such?

Name players other than the 2017-19 Astros who cheated?  And we’re not talking spit balls here.

Face it, Bregman stole from his fellow players. Raise your kids to cheat and to admire cheaters.  They’ll never make it in this world while feeling good about themselves.