Matt Shaw Won't Make Any Catches Any Other Right Fielder Wouldn't Any Time Soon

[Matthew Trueblood]

Image courtesy of © Patrick Gorski-Imagn Images

It takes a lot of reps to become a good big-league outfielder. A good, instinctive athlete can go to those positions and avoid embarrassing themselves, using speed, leaping ability and/or that great eye for ballistic movement that every baseball player must have to get this far, but those only allow one to make up for mistakes and for slow first steps on ordinary plays. A good outfielder, of course, is one who can be acutely aware of the situation (where a throw should go in each of several scenarios in which they get the ball, for instance) and who can turn balls with a real chance to be hits into outs, but that takes time. With no fewer than a few hundred fly balls (and often, a thousand or more) can a player learn to anticipate and read swings, or to intuit the way spin and wind will change the trajectory of a ball. Those things make the difference between a tolerable outfielder and a genuinely helpful one.

Unsurprisingly, Matt Shaw is merely the former, so far. He's navigated some cold, windy days during his first stint in right field in the majors, and no hit has fallen in on which it felt like there was even a remote chance of making a play. However, although it has sometimes looked like it, Shaw also hasn't been challenged. The Nationals and the Angels obligingly hit all their really dangerous fly balls out of the park, altogether. Every chance Shaw has had has been easy.

We can't draw overly confident conclusions from those reps, because one thing any smart novice will do is avail themselves of their margin for error. Still, it's impossible not to notice the slow (and often mistaken) first steps and the meandering routes Shaw has taken toward every fly ball hit his way so far. He's done two things exceptionally well:

1. Keep his feet moving, thereby letting him constantly adjust as he figures out the ball's flight plan and as it's pushed and pulled by the wind; and
2. React and move at the end of plays, putting himself in position to catch the ball and sure-handedly spearing it.

Neither of those things is to be taken for granted. More experienced outfielders often make the mistake of planting a foot too soon or stopping under the ball on a windy day; Shaw knows better than to trust his own eyes. Meanwhile, most newbies to the outfield will slightly panic or show less instinctive capacity to adjust their final movement, leading to bobbles and drops. Impressively, Shaw has actually used that final moment of flight to make up for mistakes, a couple of times, rather than to compound them.

An underrated raw athlete, Shaw showed good late explosion here. Even as he jumped, though, he realized he still didn't have the ball judged quite right. His initial thought was to go straight up and catch the ball above his head, but it was carrying past him. With a subtle turn and good body control, he caught the ball behind his body, instead. It was a really good play, with the elements and his inexperience working against him.

However, it also shouldn't have been necessary. Part of the reason he misread the ball as he leapt is because he leapt too soon, which was a means of recovering after a shaky route.

For all but the very most routine play Shaw has made so far, I went to the video clip and captured the first moment after Marquee switched from the center-field camera to the one high and behind home plate. (Marquee is not especially good at doing this quickly. so we're often missing a blink's worth of extra time that another broadcast might give us to see how the fielder first reacts to the ball off the bat, but we'll do what we can with what we have.) I then traced, as best I could, the route Shaw took to the place where he eventually made the play.

This route looks relatively direct, and it's far from his most adventurous of the season, as we'll soon see. Part of that is because it was hit hard and to his left, in a fairly obvious way. Shaw has, so far, thought just about everything hit to him was going to be more to his right (toward center field, that is) than it really proved to be. That problem was mitigated on this play, because even though he had to make a late adjustment to get far enough toward the line and far enough back, it was clear right away that those were the directions he needed to head. You've seen the result already, so we'll move on. Again, the leap wasn't quite timed right or oriented right, but only a part of that goes to Shaw's lack of nous for the outfield. Another, larger part must be put down to the wind.

Here's another play from the same Opening Day contest.

Arguably, this is the toughest ball hit his way so far, and he still caught it fairly easily. It, too, was easier than he made it look, though. Shaw is playing the outfield a bit the way he played third base, in that his first step is always in. At third, his signature move last year was to come in with an angled step, then give ground to stab a ball even as it passed him. Though it hasn't burned him yet, that won't work long-term in the outfield. On this play, he came in perhaps 5-8 feet before bending back as he chased the ball toward the gap. He also had to make a secondary redirection, because he'd been so focused on turning around from coming in to get deep enough that he hadn't angled enough toward the 'Hefty' door in right-center. He still flagged it down, though.

In between those two plays came this one, which really helps one see how well he adjusts—and how much work lies ahead to reduce the need for adjustments. This ball was hit very high, so he had more than enough time to get beneath the ball, but look at the way he (again) starts with a step in, forcing himself to turn around when it's hit over his head, and the way he turns the wrong lateral direction and has to loop back toward the line.

We can, again, ascribe some of that to the wind, and Shaw should be commended for taking a route close enough to correct to be able to scamper under the ball when the wind pushed it a bit. Still, a more experienced outfielder can anticipate some of this. Shaw is still learning.

Let's be done with Opening Day. Here's a play from Tuesday night.

Already, a little learning is evident, though it almost costs him this time. Shaw takes a long time to draw a bead on this ball, but holds his position while he does so, so he doesn't get going in the wrong direction. He comes in readily but soon realizes he needs to tack harder toward the line, and jogs under the ball. The wind did a little bit of redirection here, but this is a clear case of Shaw needing to read the spin of the ball better, too. He didn't have this one off the bat. If it were less of a lazy fly ball, it probably would have been the first should-be out to fall in against him.

Finally, let's look at two plays from Wednesday's win. The first is another instance of Shaw taking a long time to get a first read and then having to adjust his route toward the line, though it's all in a smaller space and with slightly less hangtime than on the previous play.

The second is more similar to the final play we studied from Opening Day. Again, Shaw's default step is in and to his right, and he eventually find that he needs to go back and to his left. 

Route efficiency is not all it was cracked up to be, in the earliest days of Statcast and before that. Just as catchers have found that a more kinetic, seemingly obvious and noisy set of mechanics are at least as effective a way to frame pitches as the old freeze-and-hold method, modern outfielders prize the ability to get themselves moving. Last summer, Brewers outfielder Isaac Collins (another diminutive converted infielder) found considerable success by hopping in time with the delivery of each pitch, as infielders do. He sometimes took the wrong first step, but his jumps were so good—that is, he got moving so effectively, sometimes before the ball even met the bat—that he was a plus-plus left fielder for much of the season. That's the goal for Shaw, too. Collins was a few grosses ahead of Shaw in reps even by this time last year, though, having played over 2,000 innings in the outfield during his long minor-league career.

Shaw, then, is doing something that can work, even if he'll sometimes look a little bit lost or overzealous. He's not yet ready to convert those fledgling skills into real value, in the form of catching anything that isn't routine, but he's demonstrated a strong grasp of the rudiments. He hasn't actually helped the Cubs win any games with his glove, and that's probably months away from happening—but it's fair to be encouraged by what we've seen so far, anyway.

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[Clark_Addison]

I think we can all agree Shaw is not an OF and will take lots of time to get where he could be considered even a real option to cover LF on a regular basis. Conforto is not a great defensive OF either and bat looks done. But what about Carlson?  Really surprised he hasn’t been given a start with Suzuki out and he is the best defensive OF option we have to cover for Suzuki. 

[Rcal10]

3 hours ago, Clark_Addison said:

I think we can all agree Shaw is not an OF and will take lots of time to get where he could be considered even a real option to cover LF on a regular basis. Conforto is not a great defensive OF either and bat looks done. But what about Carlson?  Really surprised he hasn’t been given a start with Suzuki out and he is the best defensive OF option we have to cover for Suzuki. 

Hopefully we see Carlson this weekend against a lefty in Cleveland.