Cubs Rookie Matt Shaw's Defensive Glow-Up, and How Experience at a New Position Matters

Watching Matt Shaw grow up in front of our eyes this year has been a bit of a pleasure. I've dived headfirst multiple times this season to highlight all of the swing changes that he has undergone. Right now, it's pretty undeniable what the changes offensively have brought for the diminutive third baseman, as his 181 wRC+ since the All-Star Break leads all third basemen with at least 100 plate appearances. He probably isn't 81% better than average, but he probably is a pretty good hitter now. I plan on diving more into his approach changes later this week, but today, let's talk about another aspect of Shaw's game; his defense. 

Before we dive into the nitty-gritty details, it's probably fair to first talk eye test—and based on the eye test alone, he's been pretty excellent. Just this past Sunday, in an afternoon game in which the Cubs completed the sweep against the Los Angeles Angels, Shaw made another seemingly beautiful play, diving to the side and reaching up to snag a line drive ticketed for left field. Before we dive into much else, I think we should just revel in the beauty and enjoy some poetry in motion:

As fun as that was, the eye test can only get us so far, and we should always double-check what we think we see with what advanced metrics see. For defense, we have two competing metrics, Defensive Runs Saved (DRS) and MLB/Statcast's Outs Above Average (OAA). Each evaluates defense a little differently, with DRS using video scouts and a zone-based range model to determine probability for how often a play should be made defensively, whereas OAA purely uses the Statcast system installed in all MLB stadiums. Many times DRS and OAA come to the same conclusion. Other times, they do not. For Shaw, it's the latter; DRS loves Matt Shaw. It rates him the third-best defensive player at his position and thinks he has saved the Cubs 8 runs, while OAA believes he has cost the Cubs 3 runs on the season. What gives? 

Let's go back to Shaw's play on Sunday, and compare this to some underlying information from Statcast. Below is a chart showing Shaw's starting positioning and what his OAA is at each place. Blue is bad, while red is good. Note that Shaw is much worse when he starts deeper on the infield than when he starts shallower. The play above was one of the shallower plays in which instinct really takes over, but he certainly seems to struggle when playing deeper. Getting to the bottom of why this is the case will help us grasp what's going on defensively with Cubs rookie. 

Your first inclination may be that his arm just isn't good enough from back there. If this was your stance, you'd likely point to his 31st-percentile arm strength and then suggest that his noodly arm just wasn't enough to whip it across the field. Here's the issue: you'd probably be wrong. Caleb Durbin of the Milwaukee Brewers has one of the deepest starting positions in baseball at third, has an arm in the same percentile ranking as Shaw and is a +2 OAA fielder at third—and his best work is done deep at the position. Ke'Bryan Hayes of the Cincinnati Reds is in the 99th percentile for fielding at third base, but his arm is even weaker than Shaw's. The Great Impossible Nick Madrigal Dominance at third was just two years ago. If others can throw just as hard as Matt and be successful, something else is afoot.

So if it isn't the arm, then we have to figure out another reason. The chart helps us visualize what may be occurring on a two-dimensional plane, but our best bet is to go to the video to better see the minutiae. For our first look, we'll head way back to April 2, to highlight one of Shaw's missteps. The Cubs are playing Oakland Sacramento the Oakland Athletics in an early season tilt, somewhere in the west. In the second inning, Athletics catcher Shea Langoliers hits a hard ground ball to Shaw at third base. Shaw boots the ball; Langoliers reaches first on an error. Frankly, I'm a little less concerned by the error here (at least for our purposes), but I want to highlight his positioning and his comfort level. Shaw is playing well beyond third base (in that area of blue on the Statcast chart), and he simply misplays that hard-hit ball directly at him. He's almost caught between hops. He feels uneasy on it—uncomfortable, even. Sure, Langeliers hit the ball almost 98 mph, but it's a play we should expect a third baseman to make, and the scorers agreed, marking it an E-5 and his third error on the young season.

Traveling even further back in time, we can see another one of Shaw's early errors. On the same road trip, the Cubs are in their house of horrors, The Snakepit in Arizona. Eugenio Suárez hits a similarly hard ground ball toward third (this time to the backhand side), and Shaw (again) boots it. Once again, I want to focus less on the error itself, but the positioning: he's very deep when he gets eaten up. This is right in that same area on the field, and Shaw just isn't comfortable enough to make a play he should make. Another E-5. 

On the season, Shaw's average positional depth is about average for the position; he's not someone who plays deeper than others at the position. So, then, what should we make of the OAA data and the errors highlighted? I think he was uncomfortable and new to the position. Neither of the two errors above should be "hard" plays to make at 3b; they were each hit roughly 98 mph off the bat, but neither was purely scorched or required much movement. However, these are plays you probably don't routinely see at second base or at shortstopL hard hit balls directly at you, which requires quick-twitch reaction. I also wonder if the throw is getting to Shaw. Especially on the play against Arizona, Shaw is going to have to glove and throw, and it isn't like he's a strong thrower for the position (as we have previously discussed). 

It shouldn't be surprising, then, to learn that the plays Shaw has been most competent on this season (according to Statcast) are plays that have required him to go toward the plate. If we are to think about batted ball types he was most likely to have seen over the course of his career, balls in which he charges in are some of the most common overlaps with shortstop and second base. It suggests that Shaw was never a bad defender on the whole, but that the plays he was likely less familiar with (hard-hit baseballs deep at the spot) were new, and thus, a learning experience for the youngster. 

Specifically, what you have to do on these two plays (and what Shaw failed to do, but has begun to do even on similar balls as the season has progressed) is gain ground. That sounds crazy, to anyone less than a big-league infielder. How do you even find time to come in, however little, on a ball hit right around 100 mph at you? This is similar to the way hitters who reach the majors face a tough learning curve. Even in the minors, you're going to see some guys with good velocity, but it's not everyone, and most of the guys at those levels who do have good velocity lack other good offerings. Your bat speed can cover their velocity, or you can just pick on the guys who don't have it.

In the majors, you have to learn to trigger early, in order to get to most fastballs. That's true even if you have plus bat speed, because you can't just rush your barrel through the zone if you start late. Big-league pitchers have too many ways to manipulate your timing and move the ball around; you have to start early and find a way to keep the bat in the hitting zone in case you get fooled. It's a whole new level and layer of learning that can only be forced by the best competition in the world.

That level and layer is a bit less daunting on the defensive side, because there are more guys in the minors who hit those hot shots down to third base and there are fewer ways that guys in the majors can make you cover more ground or speed things up even more than there are with pitchers facing you as a hitter. If you haven't spent a ton of time at third on the way up the chain, though, the shock to the system is still a bit more real. You have to learn a pre-pitch routine that gets you ready for an explosive movement toward the baseball, and you have to get comfortable making that burst forward even when the ball is hit hard. Sometimes, a fielder actually has to take a slight banana route to a ball a step or two to their side, starting in and then giving ground at the last moment. That's not how they teach you to do it in high school or college, but it has to be the approach for all but the most catlike and cannon-armed third basemen in MLB.

Where Shaw is (deservedly) getting love are on the plays like we saw on his diving catch on Sunday, but I think the real progress has happened without us even noticing. We can see the progress in a game on August 14, in a 2-1 loss against the Toronto Blue Jays. The Cubs are losing by one in the seventh inning. While we're paying more attention to the score, or the offense's lack of punch, grumbling that the team is likely to never score more than a single run in a game ever again, Ty France hits a 97-mph ground ball to Shaw.

Shaw, playing behind the bag, fields the ball cleanly, then fires to first base. It's a routine play, one that requires no reply by the broadcast team. Typical. Out. But that play had all of the same ingredients as that Langeliers ground ball on April 2, essentially the same exit velocity, the same ask of the Cubs' third baseman (which was very little), except the one difference we can't see; experience. Shaw just made the play this time. In this way, it's better to not stand out; neither of the errors highlighted here would be memorable if Shaw didn't mess them up, and making that play on France is exactly what that should look like.

By August, third base was no longer a "new" position, it was one in which he had seen hundreds of innings against high-level hitters. Shaw has made just three errors since, none of which resemble those early miscues. There was a pop-up to shallow left on which Shaw was battling wind and sun and couldn't make the catch; a hard-hit ball against Cleveland he was unable to field cleanly, but which came when he was positioned on the grass; and a throwing error against the White Sox on which he just tried to do a little too much. These early struggles seemed to vanish with time; his mistakes lately have felt like a systematic deficiency and more like hiccups. Yet, they happened pretty frequently early in the season. He had three errors in just his first nine games, and has had three mishaps in his next 87. That further speaks to the issue at hand: inexperience.

So what should we believe when we look at Shaw's defense? Is he great? Is he bad? I think it's a mix of both; I think Shaw is a good defender today, but we cannot just ignore what he did (or didn't do) early this year. In April, the Cubs had a third baseman who was a second baseman masquerading at the position, capable of making the plays he was used to while struggling with confidence and inexperience on newer types of balls hit his direction. Now, the Cubs have a more complete defender—someone who shows more confidence on the routine while flashing the twitch and instincts he always had. And while I know it's the glass-half-full perspective, as Shaw moves forward, I think he's a lot closer to the 8 runs saved that DRS has him at than the -3 runs saved that OAA currently lists him at. If his offensive changes are to be taken as a sign of change, then we should do the same defensively. The Shaw the Cubs trot out to third base and in the batter's box is a very different beast than he was in March.

Have you noticed a change in Matt Shaw's defense? What kind of progress have you noticed? Let us know in the comment section below.