Jason Ross

Another winnable pitching match up. Would be great to take a second here and guarantee a series win.

Matt Shaw is a bit of a unicorn when it comes to his pre-swing setup. But is this set up to his detriment, or is there something under the surface that suggests there's a bit of a method to the madness? Image courtesy of © Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images Matt Shaw looks weird;. I said what I said, don't act like you weren't thinking it, too. That's not a personal attack against the Cubs rookie, either. I'm not making fun of his physical looks or anything else. It's just that when he hits, he looks weird. He has an incredibly odd setup where his front foot toes in. Frankly, that looks painful, but who am I to judge? But it doesn't end there, as once he initiates his swing, he uses a fairly large, sweeping leg kick to help generate torque and power. There isn't another hitter in the league who looks like that right now. But here's the rub... weird doesn't always mean bad. To highlight how bold his setup is, we only need to turn to Statcast's new ability to track where a player stands in relation to the batters' box. Using this, we can see how far or close to home plate a hitter stands, how open or closed his stance is, and how deep in the box he stands. We can also track where the point of contact is. When it comes to Shaw, Statcast agrees with your eye test - the third baseman is a bit of an oddball. Below is a chart of all MLB hitters in 2025, sorted by distance off of the plate. Shaw is among the leaders in this category. A few other names on this list may jump out to you; the leader in the clubhouse is former Cub farmhand Cam Smith, as well as names such as Elly De La Cruz, Lawrence Butler, Max Kepler, Willson Contreras, and most notably, superstar Aaron Judge. In and of itself, standing close or further from the plate may not necessarily matter. What makes Shaw unique on this list is that he's much shorter than the others I have listed. Judge is listed at 6'7", Elly is 6'5", and even Contreras is 6'1". Comparatively, Matt Shaw is generously listed at 5'10". One of these things is not like the other. One way that Shaw makes up for this is his stance. Remember how weird Shaw looks at the plate? With the awkward toe-in? The far end of that chart shows how open or closed off a hitter stands. The names listed above all clock in as "open" stances... Shaw is not. In terms of stance angle, Shaw has the 11th most closed-off stance in Major League Baseball. We also see another interesting relationship: hitters with closed stances generally hit further from the plate. This feels like it makes sense in theory. As a hitter angles his body towards the plate, they may become more susceptible to being jammed on inside pitches. To compensate, hitters seemingly stand further from the plate. This allows them to go from a closed stance to a more neutral one, allowing them to get inside the pitch better. Statcast has a visualization tool allows one to see the start position (in black) and the finishing position (in red). Below, you can see how Shaw uses his closed stance to open up a little more. Rememberthis, as I'll come back to it in a bit. While these pieces of information are interesting, attempting to figure out what it means for Matt Shaw is important. The first concern I think you could have is, "Can Matt Shaw, especially with his height disadvantage, get to the outside pitch?" We are currently in "small sample size extreme" territory, but as of Friday morning, it seems the answer is "mostly yes." Below are a few heat maps to visualize how Matt Shaw has been pitched early in the season (left), where Matt Shaw is swinging (center), and what his average is on pitches hit in those zones (right). Pitchers are attacking Matt Shaw up and in as well as low and away. Shaw is swinging, more so at the up-and-in pitch, but when he has to, at the low-and-away. He's also using the away pitch to his advantage when he does swing there - though a further look shows that Shaw knows this is not a favorable zone for damage. He can hit it when he must, but it's not a pitch he wants to swing at. On the left is Shaw's overall swing%, while on the right is his swing% when he is behind in the count. It's a swing choice out of necessity, not of pure want, but one he's still capable of using if he must. It reflects the beginning of a mature approach at the plate. Shaw is who he is. He will swing, but he's at least capable of knowing that when he's ahead in the count, he understands his pitch. It should be noted, however, that while the average on low and outside is good, he hasn't been making a ton of contact in that region. Again, it's not one that is likely to be a strong suit for him, but he's at least shown glimpses of competitiveness there. It's something to put in our back pocket as a potential issue or place for polish down the road. One thing that has been levied against Matt Shaw so far is that his exit velocities have been unimpressive - and I don't disagree. But it's likely because Shaw has a weird ability to take the outside pitch and hook it into left field. The Cubs rookie has yet to log a hit that would be classified "going the other way" despite the above swing decision chart showing he can make contact with that outside pitch. On Wednesday alone, he notched two hits, one to left field and another to center, with 82 mph and 74 mph exit velocities. However, the xBA on both were .880 and .940, respectively. It's yet to be seen if he can continue doing that, but being pitched away is probably why the EVs have remained low. I don't think we're at a place yet where we can say exactly what this all means, but I feel comfortable saying that Matt Shaw has a somewhat defined plan with his stand-and-swing decisions. He clearly would like to hit the ball on the inside portion of the plate (and using how he opens his body and front side up, it makes sense), and specifically, higher in the zone, likely to use his leg kick and momentum to generate extra power in a frame that does not help with leverage. He uses his 17-degree launch angle to help with this as well. He's shown, thus far, that while he's capable of guarding the outside of the zone, this isn't his zone. This is all probably fine - we know power comes from a player's pull side and that going the other way can be a helpful tool; it should not be your zone of power, either. It will be interesting to see how pitchers use the information and data presented here. So far, pitchers have not been afraid to throw him in the high middle of the plate but have also identified that low-and-away isn't where they should probably worry about damage being done. That's not a uniquely Matt Shaw thing, either, as it's just not a good place to generate power. If pitchers begin to avoid the high-middle and go more and more on the outside, how Shaw handles that new plan of attack will be something to monitor. But again, this is not an issue that should be considered unique to Shaw. Instead, it's the push and pull of a young player. As the rookie gets a foothold in the league, there will be a consistent back and forth of the league learning about Shaw and Shaw learning how to adjust to a new attack pattern. If there's a positive to remember, it's that Shaw showed an ability to hit home runs to the opposite field in Triple-A, though those pitches were more middle-high and not low-and-away. So, yeah, Matt Shaw is weird. He's among the furthest away from the plate, using one of the most closed stances in the league and having some of the shortest distance between his front and back foot. But so far, his weirdness doesn't seem to be an overall detriment. As such, while he looks weird, Shaw seems to have an internal understanding of his skills and how to use them, as evidenced by his swing decisions. That's usually a good sign for a hitter when we can visualize a plan of attack like this, which ultimately fills me with more hope than anything. It doesn't mean tweaks or changes may still not be on the table, but this initial setup doesn't appear to be a complete non-starter for MLB success. What do you think of Matt Shaw's stance and performance thus far? Is this sustainable? Let us know in the comment section below! View full article

I suspect there will be a dip. It's baseball. 162 game schedules create dips for all. A few years ago when the Dodgers lost to the Astros in the WS they won 20 in a row and lost 10 in a row the same year. It's a weird sport. But they look quality. So despite a dip later I'm feeling better and better about this team being there at the end of the season into the playoffs.

Lets talk positives: - Shota at home is still Shota at home - Cubs dealt with bad Babip luck. Still won. - Hodge looks like real deal - Sneaky good game for Shaw. All three PAs could have been legit hits, then a hard fought (maybe a little luck) walk. Nice defensive play in the 9th too. - Despite his best efforts at times, Pressely eventually got the job done. - 1st loss for SD on the year. - Looks pretty likely we take 1st in the Central

Just how you draw it up. W.

xBA of .470 and 103mph off the bat.

Seiya!

Cubs Outs through 4: Suzuki - 114 mph xBA .740 Amaya - 105 mph xBA .930 Swanson - 98mph xBA .320 Tucker - 98mph xBA .380 Shaw - 87mph xBA .540

Per Statcast - up to 7

1. The Athletics aren't good mind you, but they're not some historically bad fodder like they were two years ago. They're your standard "not great" teams. They're much better than standard Triple-A teams, and yet he had a very good series. He also saw their two best SP's in Springs and Severino. Discounting them like this is...silly. C'mon. 2. His two hits on Wednesday had an expected BA of .940 and .880. They were not "lucky to fall in", it would have been very unlucky for them to be outs. He probably doesn't look comfortable. He's played nine major league baseball games. He's seeing each pitcher for the first time, and has faced Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Roki Sasaki, Jeremy Springs, L:uis Severino, Zac Gallen, Merril Kelly, Mason Miller...he's facing some guys who have ridiculous stuff. He's not going to look comfortable against these guys by going and facing "Random Triple-A pitcher #9" for three more weeks, either. The way you gain comfort against those guys is seeing those guys. This is what rookies look like. He's running a 126 wRC+,, a 23% K-ate, a 16% BB-rate, and a .240/..367/.400 line since coming back Stateside, where he's presumably fully healthy now and past an oblique injury. How much more comfortable should he look? We don't need to litigate whether or not he belongs because he had a good series against just the A's, or every other series. There will be ups and downs. He is a rookie. But he doesn't look like he's getting crunched by MLB pitching, and while he's certainly not fully comfortable yet, he's held his own.

Control felt like it was rust combined with rain. Outside of that, that's excellent stuff. Much better fastball shape, better velo than Iowa last year, and a 109 Stuff+ will play Good horsefeathers.

Oh. Caissie hit a triple. 113mph. Yep.

Rain affected him, it looked. He was struggling to find the zone and was really fighting his grip.

There was a major shift in his LA in the 2nd half. This goes to show that it was not an accident and a conscious shift. That's good.

Thats rarely a good thing.

That was a 98mph from Cade.

He looks really good. Both of those slider misses were very close. This is a far shout from the guy who showed up at Iowa last year. Makes me wonder if he got to Iowa tweaked and then did more damage.

That's a really good PA by Shaw. Best he's had so far, IMO.

Yep. Me and Mitch talked about this on the NSBB pod last evening. I'm a process > result kind of guy as process usually helps inform the future. PCA's process looks pretty solid right now, despite the lack of results. He's just getting under things a bit. Iron that out and you'll be at the cross-section of the two.

On Steele's fastball velocity, I think his "new normal" seems to be flashing 92-93, but averaging something around 91 (ish). Using year-to-year it is down, but he's been in this range of ~91mph (ish) for a bit dating back to last year. Since August of last year here are his average FB velocities per game: 91.4, 92, 91.9, 91.5, 91.2, 91.2, 91.4, 90.4, 90.9, 91.7, 91. *His 91.9 mph game came in a two-inning appearance against Toronto so it would be safe to say that fatigue didn't set in, as well, this is one of only two games in which he averaged over 91.5mph post-August last year and only three times including 2025 (his 91.7mph game against Arizona) Velocity was his lowest this year in Tokyo, which due to illness and being mid-March is pretty explainable. His velo against Arizona was on the high end of that sample size, and then back down on a kind of chilly night in Sacramento. So while it's probably not a great sign, I do think he's got a good excuse for one of those starts and another, he had a pretty good average velocity. The good news is that through that span in August and September last year, the fastball velocity sitting even in the low 91 decimals doesn't seem to be a massive issue for him. Here is that span compared to his season total: 2.16 ERA, 3.02 FIP, 3.21 xFIP, 10% HR/FB%, 27.,8% o-swing, 74.5% contact, 27.2K% (Aug - End) 3.35 ERA, 3.23 FIP, 3.62 xFIP, 8.7% HR/FB%, 27.7 o-swing%, 79.1 contact%, 24.3 K% (full-2024) If we want to be super fair though, Steele didn't have a massively rough run of opponents during that span, seeing the Cardinals, White Sox, Blue Jays (only two innings), Tigers, Pirates, A's and Phillies. So probably fair to attribute some of that to that, as well. I really think he just needs to dial in the control/command. All druthers, I'd rather he be pumping 92mph more often, but I think the <91.5mph Justin Steele can be pretty effective as seen at the end of last year.

@Mitch Widmeierand myself also discussed this on our latest episode (dropped today) of the NSBB Pod!

No. It's April 2nd. In any normal year, he'd have made just two starts at this point. I know the control hasn't looked good, but stuff wise he's been fine. Slider hasn't lost spin, the fastball hasn't lost velocity. It's more than likely a mechanical issue/tweak/conditioning/rust or some combination of the four that is resulting in this. So I'm not worried. I'd like to see it fixed, surely, but he's been too good, too long for this to be a concern currently. On the left is his slide concentration this year. Notice how much more concentrated his slider is on the right (down and away from RHP) versus the left?. Shockingly, leaving the ball up is not working. Fix that, Stelee will be fine. That's quite fixable and points to it being a combination of the things I suggested. If the velocity dips, or if he's still struggling for command in June we can worry.

An average defensive 3b who hits would be just fine. I doubt he's ever going to be plus over there, but that's a profile that plays. His calling card will likely never be his defensive work, regardless of position.

Yep! Hopefully we'll get some reprieve until July when the Cubs will trade a few other prospects at the deadline and we'll get to read about how Drew Gray (whom I still like as a prospect) is going to be the next Clayton Kershaw because he has two good starts with the Angels in Triple-A.

The lanky righthander had a pretty successful rookie season, but one that left some big questions to answer. Entering 2025, the team and the player have made a change in his arm slot. Is this a way for the Cubs to help him fix some of his biggest issues? Image courtesy of © Sergio Estrada-Imagn Images Ben Brown was one of the fun surprises of the 2024 season. After a rough end for the hurler due to injury in 2023, it was widely expected that he wouldn't be making an impact at the highest level until mid-year at best—and even then, likely in the bullpen. Disaster struck on Opening Day, though, as de facto staff ace Justin Steele went down with a hamstring strain, forcing the right-handed rookie into rotation duty. Using just a two-pitch arsenal—a four-seam fastball and his "deathball"—Brown had an encouraging rookie campaign, striking out 28% of hitters faced; showing improved ability to limit walks; and wowing with his stuff. Everything was not perfect for the rookie pitcher, however. While Brown showed off an above-average ability to generate whiffs, when hitters did connect, they found a lot of barrels and a lot of loud contact. At times, loud contact can be explained away with a large number of ground balls, but Brown was not a ground ball pitcher; this was going to be something that Brown would have to diagnose and fix. It's great to get whiffs, but it was unclear whether or not the rate at which Brown was surrendering hard-hit balls would be viable in the long term. Despite Brown's ability to create swings and misses, he rarely forced hitters to chase his pitches out of the zone. It seems, as we enter 2025, that the Chicago Cubs may have found a way to help change this, by changing his arm slot. In 2024, Brown's arm slot was a pretty standard three-quarter action. Baseball Savant had it clocked in at an average angle of 41° when he threw his fastball. As the season went along, he would actually lower his arm angle considerably, as seen on the chart below. With this arm angle, most of his fastballs remained in the zone. He concentrated them higher in the zone, which is a good way to attack hitters in today's game. The problem is that you are more prone to missing in the zone, and for Brown, that meant leaving pitches center-cut. At that point, it doesn't matter how hard you throw: you're going to get hit hard. This helps explain why Brown both struggled to get chases and got hit hard when contact was made. It may also be the root cause. So what can an arm angle change do? In this instance, the Cubs and Brown have adjusted his average fastball release point from 41° all the way to 47°. While it may not seem six degrees is a massive difference, when we talk about angles of attack, it can be. For Brown, it's created more rise (or, put another way, less drop) in his fastball. It also creates a new release point, as Brown now comes far more over the top. The result? Brown has been throwing his fastball outside the strike zone much more often. That's a good thing. When you specialize in the high heater, you want your misses to be above the one, not down at the belt. While it's too early to focus on results, he's getting far more chase than he had been previously. FanGraphs's Stuff+ model agrees that this pitch is better, as he's jumped from an 87 Stuff+ grade last year to a far better 122 this season. He's still getting hit hard when he induces contact on the fastball, but this isn't the only result that a more over-the-top release can have. Perhaps the best part of Brown's change is that it has made it far harder for hitters to connect and lift his pitches. Last season, when opposing hitters made contact with his pitches, they averaged a launch angle of 18° on his fastball. The reason the launch angle revolution came about was to take advantage of pitches on the lower half of the strike zone, as it creates a larger window for contact to occur. By raising his release point (and thus, raising the average location of his pitches), hitters are no longer able to get to that offering—unless they deploy a flatter, less dangerous swing. This season, the launch angle against Brown's fastball is down to 9°, a massive shift. Brown has seen his ground-ball rate shoot up, from 38.7% in 2024 to 48.7% in 2025. This means more twin killings, and more importantly, fewer fly balls. Another thing that should help is that by raising his release point, Brown's curve can play better off the fastball. Curves usually correlate strongly with ground balls to begin with, and we know that Brown's deathball is a Stuff+ monster (grading out as a 125 Stuff+ pitch last season). Hitters had just a .183 xwOBA against it last year, and by creating more separation between where the fastball lands and where the deathball lands, the arm angle change should help create difficult decisions. For a pitcher who's yet to be able to throw a third offering, creating any extra deception with his limited arsenal is key to getting the most out of what you do have. If there is a downside to Brown's arm angle change, however, it's that it also seems to have raised where his curveball is landing. Arguably, he's leaving it much too close to the middle of the zone. By raising the arm slot, everything has gotten a little higher. On the left is his curveball placement in 2024. On the right, see the same data for 2025. I don't want to get ahead of myself, though. Brown still hasn't been perfect in 2025, so we're not at a finished and polished product. The curve (given how hard he throws it and the location of his fastball after the change in angle) might play fine on that glove-side edge of the zone, almost as much like a slider as a curve. It's too early for his results to even mean anything, given the environments and circumstances in which they occurred, but it's also true that those results are less than gorgeous. While we might be able to explain away some of the home runs as a little unlucky (Jacob Wilson's home run Monday night was only a home run in Sacramento, for example), his increase in walk rate tracks with an increase of throwing his fastball outside of the strike zone. It's hard to say definitively if these changes will create more problems than positives (as seen by his current curveball location). However, despite those questions, the Cubs and Brown are clearly trying to make positive steps to fix the issues he had in his rookie season. There's enough reason to believe, looking at his improved groundball rate, his jump in fastball Stuff+, and his increased chase rate, that the sum of the changes will result in a better version of Ben Brown moving forward. View full article