Cubs (Assad) vs Phillies (Sanchez): 4/13/26, 5:40pm

[Tangled Up in Plaid]

Garrett Crochet gave up 10 er tonight, Javy in good company 

[We Got The Whole 9]

9 minutes ago, Irrelevant Dude said:

Don't look now, but Ballasteros is leading the team in batting average and OPS.

And just to prop him up a little more, Basallo has a 150 BA and 500 OPS

[17 Seconds]

love seeing schwarber light this team up

[Stratos]

3 hours ago, UMFan83 said:

Probably? I’ll be interested to see the catch probability…should have been caught

I really hope this Shaw supersub experiment pays off down the line because he's looked rough at 1b and at times in RF.  Putting the guy with the shortest wingspan on the team at 1b is a pretty desperate play.

[Stratos]

PCA vs LHP should just take until he gets a strike and then bunt.  Maybe it works 3 outta 10 times.

[Stratos]

Yeah the pen the tired but you can't leave Assad out there clearly toasted 3rd time through the order.

Horton and Boyd injuries really hurting our longman depth.

[Tangled Up in Plaid]

trying to find catch probability on baseball savant. no clue how to do it

[Derwood]

Pirates have four players with 10+ RBI

Cubs have one

[Geographyhater8888]

4 hours ago, Stratos said:

I really hope this Shaw supersub experiment pays off down the line because he's looked rough at 1b and at times in RF.  Putting the guy with the shortest wingspan on the team at 1b is a pretty desperate play.

He has no long term value on the Cubs unless he can develop into a mid 700’s OPS guy with a +glove to supplant Happ in the outfield with a clogged infield. 

Edited Tuesday at 07:28 AM by Geographyhater8888

[Geographyhater8888]

PCA would swing at a seagull in the outfield. He’s been brutal. 

Edited Tuesday at 11:36 AM by Geographyhater8888

[Geographyhater8888]

Assad is another typical high floor, FIP beating soft tossing Cub pitcher who gets shelled vs a team like the Phillies without pin point command. This is a bad stretch of games to have these injuries in the rotation.

Edited Tuesday at 11:42 AM by Geographyhater8888

[Backtobanks]

6 hours ago, Geographyhater8888 said:

He has no long term value on the Cubs unless he can develop into a mid 700’s OPS guy with a +glove to supplant Happ in the outfield with a clogged infield. 

That's why I proposed trading him in the offseason.  He had a ton of trade value according to BTV, but it will probably decrease pretty rapidly as a backup IF and a below average backup OF/1B.  The left side of the infield is locked up long-term so we could have signed a mediocre backup IF for under $3million.

[squally1313]

22 minutes ago, Backtobanks said:

That's why I proposed trading him in the offseason.  He had a ton of trade value according to BTV, but it will probably decrease pretty rapidly as a backup IF and a below average backup OF/1B.  The left side of the infield is locked up long-term so we could have signed a mediocre backup IF for under $3million.

The whole infield is locked up. Yes, I'm sure if we would have traded him that would have prompted a Dansby injury or something and then Dylan Moore or whatever would have set a record most consecutive outs recorded. But you came into the season with 5 major league ready infielders, all with team control through at least 2030, and then took the worst hitting one and decided to try and move him up the spectrum to spots where more offense is expected. And also on top of that, he's not good defensively anymore.

Hindsight is 20/20, but watching Matt Shaw, who seemed like a very high floor third baseman at the end of last year, flail around a different position every night while Jameson Taillon and his 89 mph fastball and his 37.50 spring ERA is slotted as our third starter is maddening. 

[Geographyhater8888]

1 hour ago, Backtobanks said:

That's why I proposed trading him in the offseason.  He had a ton of trade value according to BTV, but it will probably decrease pretty rapidly as a backup IF and a below average backup OF/1B.  The left side of the infield is locked up long-term so we could have signed a mediocre backup IF for under $3million.

It’s an incoherent plan. I’m assuming they want to keep their options open hoping he can supplant Happ? Unless you DH Bregman and develop Mo into an everyday catcher then he’s a lame duck if he still has an infield caliber bat. 

[Jason Ross]

11 minutes ago, Geographyhater8888 said:

It’s an incoherent plan. I’m assuming they want to keep their options open hoping he can supplant Happ? Unless you DH Bregman and develop Mo into an everyday catcher then he’s a lame duck if he still has an infield caliber bat. 

I don't find it incoherent. The reality is that you can easily find 400-450 PA's for a 10th "regular" in today's game if you have versatility.  Injuries will happen as well. Shaw has played OF in the past (college) and can play 2b, 3b and moonlight at SS. The 1b thing feels more of a "out of necessity" thing, but the other positions? Yeah, I think it's coherent. 

Now, you may not love the idea of Matt Shaw as that type of a player for X reason, but if you think he's a 100-105 wRC+ bat, that will play. It's as little underwhelming for RF, but much better than league average at 2b or 3b and should even out. Defensively, we can talk vibes and feels, but so far he's been a +1 DRS and 0 OAA as a RF'er so eye test isn't matching very early defensive stats, either. I'm hesitant to say one way or the other though because defensive metrics get wonky, so it's more "let's re-evaluate it" but metric wise he isn't costing the team runs it would seem.

I don't disagree that it may eventually be best to move Shaw for something else you need, but a lot of times that's easier said than done. We can say "well you should just trade Matt Shaw" but it requires a second team to offer what you deem value north of what 400-450 PA's of Matt Shaw off the bench will provide. 

 

[squally1313]

9 minutes ago, Jason Ross said:

I don't find it incoherent. The reality is that you can easily find 400-450 PA's for a 10th "regular" in today's game if you have versatility.  Injuries will happen as well. Shaw has played OF in the past (college) and can play 2b, 3b and moonlight at SS. The 1b thing feels more of a "out of necessity" thing, but the other positions? Yeah, I think it's coherent. 

Now, you may not love the idea of Matt Shaw as that type of a player for X reason, but if you think he's a 100-105 wRC+ bat, that will play. It's as little underwhelming for RF, but much better than league average at 2b or 3b and should even out. Defensively, we can talk vibes and feels, but so far he's been a +1 DRS and 0 OAA as a RF'er so eye test isn't matching very early defensive stats, either. I'm hesitant to say one way or the other though because defensive metrics get wonky, so it's more "let's re-evaluate it" but metric wise he isn't costing the team runs it would seem.

I don't disagree that it may eventually be best to move Shaw for something else you need, but a lot of times that's easier said than done. We can say "well you should just trade Matt Shaw" but it requires a second team to offer what you deem value north of what 400-450 PA's of Matt Shaw off the bench will provide. 

 

If we can appeal to authority on defensive metrics, then we can also call Matt Shaw a career 91 wRC hitter, which maybe plays with good defense at 2B/3B, but almost certainly doesn't in the outfield and definitely doesn't at first base. We won't talk about his one start already at DH. In a world where we aren't pinching pennies to stay under the first luxury tax threshold (FG has us at $1.3m above, $19m to the next threshold), we could find/have found a slightly below league average hitter with positional flexibility to take the 10th man spot. 

I don't disagree that there's a job with 450 PAs for a tenth man. But your bat needs to be able to play at the positions where those PAs are coming from if you aren't going to provide defensive value above league average. It worked when you could bump Kris Bryant into the corner outfield or when Zobrist was putting up 120 wRCs. It doesn't work with a 91 wRC guy learning how to play outfield at a major league level.  

[Geographyhater8888]

40 minutes ago, Jason Ross said:

I don't find it incoherent. The reality is that you can easily find 400-450 PA's for a 10th "regular" in today's game if you have versatility.  Injuries will happen as well. Shaw has played OF in the past (college) and can play 2b, 3b and moonlight at SS. The 1b thing feels more of a "out of necessity" thing, but the other positions? Yeah, I think it's coherent. 

Now, you may not love the idea of Matt Shaw as that type of a player for X reason, but if you think he's a 100-105 wRC+ bat, that will play. It's as little underwhelming for RF, but much better than league average at 2b or 3b and should even out. Defensively, we can talk vibes and feels, but so far he's been a +1 DRS and 0 OAA as a RF'er so eye test isn't matching very early defensive stats, either. I'm hesitant to say one way or the other though because defensive metrics get wonky, so it's more "let's re-evaluate it" but metric wise he isn't costing the team runs it would seem.

I don't disagree that it may eventually be best to move Shaw for something else you need, but a lot of times that's easier said than done. We can say "well you should just trade Matt Shaw" but it requires a second team to offer what you deem value north of what 400-450 PA's of Matt Shaw off the bench will provide. 

 

Right. But it’s unclear what his future as a Cub is and any future in the infield was slammed shut when they extended Nico.

Do they want him under team control for 6 years to be Zobrist 2.0? Is he auditioning to become Happ or Suzukis successor? Are they waiting for a player at a position of need to become available and then shop him? It’s just odd to see a team so focused on on staying under the tax spending a combined $326 million on 2 infielders blocking their top prospect at his natural position.

Edited Tuesday at 03:48 PM by Geographyhater8888

[Jason Ross]

21 minutes ago, squally1313 said:

If we can appeal to authority on defensive metrics, then we can also call Matt Shaw a career 91 wRC hitter, which maybe plays with good defense at 2B/3B, but almost certainly doesn't in the outfield and definitely doesn't at first base. We won't talk about his one start already at DH. In a world where we aren't pinching pennies to stay under the first luxury tax threshold (FG has us at $1.3m above, $19m to the next threshold), we could find/have found a slightly below league average hitter with positional flexibility to take the 10th man spot. 

I don't disagree that there's a job with 450 PAs for a tenth man. But your bat needs to be able to play at the positions where those PAs are coming from if you aren't going to provide defensive value above league average. It worked when you could bump Kris Bryant into the corner outfield or when Zobrist was putting up 120 wRCs. It doesn't work with a 91 wRC guy learning how to play outfield at a major league level.  

Just to be fair, I didn't really talk much about where I'm feeling about his bat. I just kept it as a "if you feel" type of a thing. However, I'll expand on my feelings there now: I do think there is a reasonable argument to him being a 100-105 wRC+ hitter. His second half of last year showed that with tweaks, there's improvement. I won't go as far as to say he's a 130 wRC+ hitter like he was from ASB on last year, but so far in 2026 he's running much better batted ball data. His EV is up to 87.7, he's got a below 2026-league average ground ball rate, his barrel rate is up, his hard hit% is up and his xwOBA is .328. To put the xwOBA in perspective, league average RF was .317 last year.

I will throw cold water on that: his pull% is way down and usually when we see low BA/wOBA compared to xData, we want to see that pull% up. Balls not pulled don't land as often, so I'm going to be fair to the information. It's typical for low-pull hitters to underperform xData. He was a super heavy pull guy in the second so that's going in the opposite direction. So maybe the xwOBA is not telling us a good story. We'll need a bigger sample. 

That said, I don't think we know what defense he plays in RF yet. Again, his RF DRS is a +1 and his OAA is a 0. I've seen him run around awkwardly out there, but metrics say that he isn't costing runs. I can't really say where I'm sitting there. I don't think he looks pretty, but looks can be deceiving and Matt wrote an article on it. 

Ultimately, he doesn't have to be a league average RF bat with average defense there to be useful in that roll for, say, 150 PA's. If he were, he'd just be a starting RF'er. But if he can be a bit of an underwhelming RF'er and a bit better than average at, say, 3b and 2b it'll all even out into a nice 400-450 PA's guy you can use when the game favors him. You don't have to start him against super tough sinker heavy RHP's in RF or anything and that should also keep the numbers artificially up. He'll likely be out in RF more against LHP which he has a 125 wRC+ last year, too. So we should keep that in mind.

To be very clear: I'm torn on Matt Shaw overall. I think he's probably a much better standard infielder than the 400-450 PA guy the Cubs are using him as. But there's some positive things happening with the batted ball data in most spots (obviously pull% is a negative) and defensive metrics in RF seem to suggest that maybe our eyes or perception could be lying to us more than we think they are. For the Cubs if they find a team who truly values him as a +defensive 3b and a 100 wRC+ hitter and can offer the Cubs something for their MLB roster,. you probably get more value with a trade. But if they don't I think he can succeed his his role to a pretty decent degree even if it isn't entirely maximizing him.

[Geographyhater8888]

If Happ hit free agency this year I wonder if they’d end up trading Shaw and keeping Cassie.

Edited Tuesday at 04:31 PM by Geographyhater8888

[squally1313]

6 minutes ago, Jason Ross said:

Just to be fair, I didn't really talk much about where I'm feeling about his bat. I just kept it as a "if you feel" type of a thing. However, I'll expand on my feelings there now: I do think there is a reasonable argument to him being a 100-105 wRC+ hitter. His second half of last year showed that with tweaks, there's improvement. I won't go as far as to say he's a 130 wRC+ hitter like he was from ASB on last year, but so far in 2026 he's running much better batted ball data. His EV is up to 87.7, he's got a below 2026-league average ground ball rate, his barrel rate is up, his hard hit% is up and his xwOBA is .328. To put the xwOBA in perspective, league average RF was .317 last year.

I will throw cold water on that: his pull% is way down and usually when we see low BA/wOBA compared to xData, we want to see that pull% up. Balls not pulled don't land as often, so I'm going to be fair to the information. It's typical for low-pull hitters to underperform xData. He was a super heavy pull guy in the second so that's going in the opposite direction. So maybe the xwOBA is not telling us a good story. We'll need a bigger sample. 

That said, I don't think we know what defense he plays in RF yet. Again, his RF DRS is a +1 and his OAA is a 0. I've seen him run around awkwardly out there, but metrics say that he isn't costing runs. I can't really say where I'm sitting there. I don't think he looks pretty, but looks can be deceiving and Matt wrote an article on it. 

Ultimately, he doesn't have to be a league average RF bat with average defense there to be useful in that roll for, say, 150 PA's. If he were, he'd just be a starting RF'er. But if he can be a bit of an underwhelming RF'er and a bit better than average at, say, 3b and 2b it'll all even out into a nice 400-450 PA's guy you can use when the game favors him. You don't have to start him against super tough sinker heavy RHP's in RF or anything and that should also keep the numbers artificially up. He'll likely be out in RF more against LHP which he has a 125 wRC+ last year, too. So we should keep that in mind.

To be very clear: I'm torn on Matt Shaw overall. I think he's probably a much better standard infielder than the 400-450 PA guy the Cubs are using him as. But there's some positive things happening with the batted ball data in most spots (obviously pull% is a negative) and defensive metrics in RF seem to suggest that maybe our eyes or perception could be lying to us more than we think they are. For the Cubs if they find a team who truly values him as a +defensive 3b and a 100 wRC+ hitter and can offer the Cubs something for their MLB roster,. you probably get more value with a trade. But if they don't I think he can succeed his his role to a pretty decent degree even if it isn't entirely maximizing him.

The issue I have with this utility role is that I don't foresee 'the game favoring him' at 2B or 3B very often at all. They're not going to alienate their flashy new signing by bumping him to DH 6 weeks into a 5 year deal. Dansby and Nico are better players in every facet of the game. We have an injury prone RF, and a first baseman, CF, and DH that struggle against LHP. Unless we want to trust him in CF (and set aside that Alcantara exists), those are super not ideal spots for what was previously a (career to date) glove first infielder. 

If we had some split heavy starting infielders, great, the mix looks way better. But his current role is basically backup COF/1B, and there's probably not a worse use of his skill set. Meanwhile, a prospect with hype but one who projects as having less value than Shaw, who profiles as a COF/1B just got traded for a 4ish FIP starter with 3 years of team control. 

Basically, if we don't think he's starter level at any position, we're doing no one favors by taking away his maximum defensive value and putting him at a spot that expects elite offense. If we think he's a starter level third baseman or second baseman, we should trade him, because we have one, and other teams would pay quite a lot for that. 

[Stratos]

8 hours ago, Geographyhater8888 said:

PCA would swing at a seagull in the outfield. He’s been brutal. 

Every AB is a chess-match between pitcher and batter and PCA is up there playing Hungry Hungry Hippos.

[Jason Ross]

5 minutes ago, squally1313 said:

The issue I have with this utility role is that I don't foresee 'the game favoring him' at 2B or 3B very often at all. They're not going to alienate their flashy new signing by bumping him to DH 6 weeks into a 5 year deal. Dansby and Nico are better players in every facet of the game. We have an injury prone RF, and a first baseman, CF, and DH that struggle against LHP. Unless we want to trust him in CF (and set aside that Alcantara exists), those are super not ideal spots for what was previously a (career to date) glove first infielder. 

If we had some split heavy starting infielders, great, the mix looks way better. But his current role is basically backup COF/1B, and there's probably not a worse use of his skill set. Meanwhile, a prospect with hype but one who projects as having less value than Shaw, who profiles as a COF/1B just got traded for a 4ish FIP starter with 3 years of team control. 

Basically, if we don't think he's starter level at any position, we're doing no one favors by taking away his maximum defensive value and putting him at a spot that expects elite offense. If we think he's a starter level third baseman or second baseman, we should trade him, because we have one, and other teams would pay quite a lot for that. 

Yeah, I don't disagree with that. I think the Cubs will view it more as the idea that when Seiya Suzuki is healthy, they can play him more at 2b, SS, and 3b (or maybe 2b/3b with Hoerner at SS) through the week to give Bregman, Hoerner and Swanson more time off and they'll find hidden value in the form of things like added rest for their best players, Shaw being a good bench player over others, etc. While also having a built in depth option for an injury., Hoerner had his fair share of knocks early (and an arm surgery last offseason), Swanson and Bregman are on the other side of 30...

I really don't think it maximizes Matt Shaw's value, but it may in theory get closer to maximizing their ability to grind over 162 games. And if the goal is team wins, Shaw's individual value matters less than the team value he can provide, at least in 2026.

Personally, I'm probably on team "if someone offers you something good for the MLB roster you do it" but I think that's a pretty narrow landing strip still. You'd need a team to both value Shaw but also be willing to trade their version of Matt Shaw (a player who probably isn't being entirely maximized on an MLB roster but has plenty of control) who is also playing a position the Cubs can maximize. Not impossible, but not entirely easy right now. 

[squally1313]

2 minutes ago, Jason Ross said:

You'd need a team to both value Shaw but also be willing to trade their version of Matt Shaw (a player who probably isn't being entirely maximized on an MLB roster but has plenty of control) who is also playing a position the Cubs can maximize. Not impossible, but not entirely easy right now. 

See I don't really care about this. If Matt Shaw gets you an ace with minimal control or a playoff starter with 1.5-2.5 years of control, you pull the trigger. We don't know what we're getting with Steele, we can't count on anything from Horton, and who knows what's going on with Wiggins. I think we all agreed that we pretty definitively needed to shift assets from offense to defense before the Cabrera trade, but now that Horton is broke you're basically back in the same spot you were 6 months ago pitching wise. Offensively you've both shored it up with Bregman and paid Nico to lessen the uncertainty going forward. Make another Caissie/Cabrera trade, but do it to maximize current production even more. 

[CubinNY]

Shaw is a future all star 2nd baseman at his 80th percentile outcome. But the Cubs have one of those locked in. 
 

it’s not time to panic, let him do what he’s going to do for now, but Jed should be on the phones looking for starters. He’s the best value player to trade for them. 

[Jason Ross]

Just now, squally1313 said:

See I don't really care about this. If Matt Shaw gets you an ace with minimal control or a playoff starter with 1.5-2.5 years of control, you pull the trigger. We don't know what we're getting with Steele, we can't count on anything from Horton, and who knows what's going on with Wiggins. I think we all agreed that we pretty definitively needed to shift assets from offense to defense before the Cabrera trade, but now that Horton is broke you're basically back in the same spot you were 6 months ago pitching wise. Offensively you've both shored it up with Bregman and paid Nico to lessen the uncertainty going forward. Make another Caissie/Cabrera trade, but do it to maximize current production even more. 

I mean, I'm also not really against that, but I'm not sure I find this scenario is likely. If it does, cool! But I think your better bet is going to be a Tolle/Early type of a SP prospect who's in a similar situation to Shaw versus, a TORP with 1.5 years of control. if that makes sense.

More or less, I think a team trading someone who's able to be a #1 or a #2 in the rotation mid July, and who has more than half a year of control is probably not looking for a player who's in a Matt Shaw situation. They'll probably be looking for more control and more bullets back in the form of prospects who have yet to make their debut. Maybe you find the perfect storm of a situation, but it feels more likely that the Cubs would be able to swap one Matt-Shaw situation for another than to find that one. Those are usually pretty bad teams and immediate MLB help isn't what they're typically gunning for, unless it's a surprise team who fell out of contention.

But who knows?