Jason Ross

So, first, I never said I wouldn't be excited. It's that the reality is a few things. 1. As TT already said, the Cubs are set up perfectly to absorb Shaw's imperfections currently. They have not been held back in anyways by him so far. And the Cubs need to find young players who are cheap if they are to spend on players like Tucker, which I think we all want them to do! 2. The deadline will only allow the Cubs to make so many moves. They can't do everything and they don't trade in a vacuum - other teams want Suarez too. They have the 2nd or 3rd best offense in baseball (depending on whether you'd rather use bulk runs scored or wRC+). While Suarez would be cool, he's a pure luxury. If Shaw just plays to his xwOBA as a league average offensive 3b, the difference between Suarez and him is more marginal than revolutionary. Other teams will likely have less of a luxury case for Suarez. Beyond that, the Cubs SP is heavily tested. They're a bottom-10 unit right now based on fWAR, and 19th based on ERA and xFIP. Horton, for as good as he has flashed, will not be able to keep up this many innings...he needs a break. They need pitchers. And the prospect capital they spend should be here, first. The Cubs can find a way to pad Shaw a bit by added a Ramon Urias type (or Willi Castro, or someone else like that) who can specifically, hit lefties well, while also providing some ability against RHP pretty easily. And given the needs the Cubs have, "more offense" is kind of like studying really hard for a class you already have an A in while ignoring studying for a class you have a C in. Sure, if you do so well in that one class, you might carry an honor-roll GPA, but it's probably easier to get there by focusing the bulk of your time into the class that you can make easier and larger gains in.

I'll leave you with three visuals, his wOBA rolling average, his rolling xwOBA, and his hard hit%. This should paint a picture that words won't need to: Notice how the bottom two are on sharp inclines yet the wOBA hasn't gone with, and actually, dropping? It's bad luck. To wrap up I'll also leave this: Shaw's xwOBA: .306 League average 3b wOBA: .306

Can I ask you a question: have you looked at any of the data I have provided either in this thread regarding his mechanical changes, his EV's, and swing decisions? I've outlined a pretty compelling data driven argument for changes and bad luck. If you haven't, then I would implore you to scroll up; Shaw has been exceedingly unlucky. There also is evidence that the EV's are going up and the quality of contact is getting better. We also have data point after data point of recent prospect callups league wide who suck for hundreds of PA's before they find their footing. These are not limited to Wyatt Langford (who has been another player who's had exceedingly bad luck, but finished last year with a 110 wRC+ after a really rough four months), Jackson Chourio, CJ Abrams, Andy Pages, Riley Greene, Sal Frelick and Kyle Stowars, multiple of whom are current all-stars. Jac Caglione is currently going through the throws of learning MLB pitching. This is the new norm. It seems like you just want to be upset that Matt Shaw isn't meeting your lofty, and frankly, out-of-touch expectations and your grasping at straws has lead you to "well the Cubs had him hit fifth on Opening Day" as your hill to die on. You are leading with emotion instead of logic, and I know you are capable of being logical.

That's a really, really bad take. It's based on almost nothing. First, what the batting order was on Day-1 should mean little, the landscape of the lineup then and now has changed greatly. Secondly, if the Cubs weren't patient with Shaw, he wouldn't be playing every single day. They have stuck with him, given him plenty of leeway. He's shown immense progress with the glove, and if you'd scroll back a page, you'd see all of the underlying data tied with mechanical tweaks. A good reminder, on July 8th last year that Pete Crow-Armstrong had a 52 wRC+ on July 8th last year, and Miguel Amaya had a 50 wRC+. Shaw has a 68, and unlike the two of them, the xData suggests he's been wildly unlucky (6th worst differential between BABIP and xBABIP and an xWOBA almost .40 points below what his wOBA is). I'm not Jed Hoyer, but I'm very confident that you are 100% wrong on their patience. It's fans patience that wears thin, not the Cubs. They've shown a pretty strong aptitude in developing players over the last few years when I'm fairly certain on this time last year fans would have tossed PCA aside as well as Amaya. We can say today how stupid that would have been. Edit: To add, if you want to see the Cubs lose patience with a player, see how they handled players like Matt Mervis who struggled, even during bad seasons. They dumped him real fast. Shaw? Not so much. On the last bit; Jordan Wicks has been hurt for a year (and debuted strong), while Matt Shaw was never supposed to move this quickly. No scout on draft day had him in the MLB by OD 2025. You're being impatient. Both moved quick, Wicks dealt with unforseen injury luck (and has made considerable progress adding 2mph of velocity since his debut in 2023) and Shaw is doing what almost every good prospect in baseball does, struggle on their initial callup. We gotta stop doing this. At this point, I almost hope the Cubs trade every single prospect at the deadline so we can at least skip this part of development.

I think we're overrating a bit of how good of a fallback he would be. For as good as Long's batted ball data is, he is currently at a 130 wRC+ through 346 PAs in Iowa at age 23. Matt Shaw, through his first 152 PA's in Triple-A posted a 136 wRC+, then in his last 110 posted a 146 wRC+, with his first run at age 22, a year younger than Long. We should expect every single prospect to struggle heavily for a few hundred PA's, and Long wasn't as good as Shaw was at the same level. His fallback is likely a slog for 200+ PA's much like Shaw has been, only, without the glove.

Well that is less than ideal. Hoping it's still just load management and an extended break.

Oh, I am certain it is! I don't want to disagree, I think a lower pressure environment would be great. I just don't think there's a situation like that, that isn't like, Miami or Pittsburgh. But I do think in Chicago, right now, it's about the perfect storm to break him in: he isn't asked to do much right now, as he can hit 9th in a pretty stacked lineup. For all of our personal hand wringing, the Cubs have a lead in the division and have had that lead all year, essentially. He's hitting against MLB pitching, which he needs to see. And he's getting a ton of flowers for his defense, which keeps people off him a bit, too. Frankly, it's about the best situation you could draw up for a kid to grit his teeth on the MLB roster for the Cubs. And the changes do seem like they're making a difference, so while the hits haven't necessarily fallen, he's clearly listening, tweaking, and seeing some positive under the hood data. My hope is that some of these balls start dropping. His xwOBA of .306 has him just under league average of .314 and right on the .306 wOBA for the position. He deserves some good luck.

Kid has a 140 wRC+ in Iowa in 250 PA's, I am a strong believer that Shaw's issues stem directly from the competition curve of MLB pitching. His recent hard hit data (coupled with the mechanical changes) suggest he's making progress, but the BABIP gods have not been on his side (please see chart above; EV uptick and BABIP downtick are spot on his latest tweaks). I'm not sure the mechanical tweaks are dragging him down right now; EV's kind of suggest otherwise. If the Cubs had a 120 wRC+ hitter at 3b, he probably would be in Iowa, but I don't think Iowa is going to realistically help him much at this stage. The answer feels like it's more MLB pitching and forcing himself through it. Thankfully for the Cubs and Shaw, they have the 2nd best run scoring and 3rd best wRC+ lineup in baseball, and they can afford a bit below average offensive 3b.

I don't necessarily agree with this. His swing decisions and this approach have seen a tick up, as well as his hard contact (prior to the Cardinals series). Significantly, actually! He had about a third of all of his hard hits over the course of a 10 game span, which coincided with elimination of the leg kick and implementation of a toe tap. He had his two hardest hit balls of that run. He also had a significantly low BABIP during that time (he's been among the least lucky hitters in baseball when we compare his BABIP and his xBABIP. 6th lowest to be fair). He also paired back his swings, swinging less in the zone. While correlation does not equate causation, it's important to note that those changes seemingly went hand in hand and that'd be a pretty big coincidence. Like, literally hand-in-hand, his first PA with his higher hand placement was his second highest EV of the year, followed up just a few games with his third. For a vizualization, look at this chart. Note how his BABIP and his hardhit% early was in lockstep, but now, it's not. That's not what you'd expect. Even taking in his poor Cardinals series here is his post-mechanical tweak EV, max EV, hard hit% and hard hit count compared to his entire year: Post change: 84.9mph (ev), 107.5mph (max), 16 hard hits, 34,8 hardhit% (46 events) Return from Iowa pre change: 82.5mph, 107.6 mph, 17 hard hits, 24.3 hard hit% (70 events) Start of year: 82.7mph, 106.5, 9 hard hits, 22.5 hardhit% (40 events) I think the data shows that there is definitely progress and it's not just blind squirrel. There has been a sustained and data-driven trend upwards. We can see that here as well: Post change: 25.2% (o-swing), 59.8% (z-swing), 44.4% (swing%), 83% (contact%), 7.5% (swinging strike) Return: 34% (o-swing), 65.2% (z-swing), 52.5% (swing%), 83.3% (contact%), 8.8% (swinging strike) Start: 30.1% (o-swing), 55.15 (z-swing), 42.6% (swing%), 74.1 (contact), 11% (swinging strike) With this, we can see as well, that he's made improvements with his approach, likely, pitch recognition due to repetition and learning MLB pitching. He's significantly cut his chase rate, while drastically increasing his contact rate. My reading of the data here suggests when he first came up, he was very passive but would chase down in the count. When he came back, he was aggressive, probably to a fault. Recently, he's much better about not chasing, while maintaining a higher swing%; that's usually a sign of a more confident hitter. Just think he's working through a lot. I'm encouraged at the underlying data, most recent series not withstanding. He was pulling off a lot of outside pitches which lead to ground outs. It was not something I've seen in a while, and he's been very willing to always go the other way, so I would very much wonder if the Cubs are working with him specifically on pulling the baseball right now and that was overcompensating.

Yeah, Shaw did not hit well against St Louis. He had been trending in the correct direction with batted ball prior to that, however. I thought he got real pull happy. Which, I guess could be a few things. It could be bad pitch recognition. it could be bad PA's. Could also be an approach shift and he's working through it (he's made a bunch of mechanical tweaks over the year already).

Mentioned Ty on the podcast this week. Funny, at the time he felt like the guy in the Parades trade who was there for the ride, and he might be the best player the Rays get back. For the record, I'm fine with the trade! Just funny how that works. And the damn Rays and their myriad of horsefeathers arms.

Feels like the new norm. Expanded playoffs have made even more fringe teams squint and say "well, maybe" while the bottom feeders have gotten worse and worse. The only teams open for business right now are the garbage teams who can offer you very little and the fringe teams will likely come to grips, but until they have to, will charge and arm and a leg for that privilege. I guess the positive of that, from a Cub perspective, is that while the Cubs can't get the SP they need right now without paying an arm and a leg and a firstborn, no one else can either.

I think looking back at the 2018 draft is a good anecdote for this. Sexy picks at #24 could have been Seth Beer and his plus approach and solid college output, or JT Ginn, who had a 99mph fastball when they weren't all the rage. The Cubs instead took SS Nico Hoerner, someone who probably was always going to move off of SS at some point and wasn't the upside swing. Sure, Ginn could have been a TORP, and Seth Beer could have been Yordan Alvarez, but it was Nico Hoerner, the kind of ho-hum boring pick, that's turned into a top-5 player at his position, while it's taken Ginn until age 26 to even make his MLB debut (as a part time starter, part time reliever with an average FB velocity under 94mph) and Beer has a 74 wRC+ in Triple-A at age 28. Reality is, the sexy picks at the time, especially in the mid-late of the first, are probably only sexy if we focus on the 99% outcome. Like Jace Laviolette would be a sexy pick! He has some big power and was considered for 1:1 in the draft 5 months ago! But his swing and miss has become such an issue that I'm not sure he'll make it out of Double-A. The 99% outcome for Laviolette is a blast, but Marek Houston might be among the most likely to play MLB baseball due to his glove alone, and in the end, the sexiest picks are the ones that help your MLB roster. No one thinks Seth Beer is a sexy draft pick any more. I didn't realize JT Ginn was even in the MLB right now. But I know Nico Hoerner is top-5 in MLB fWAR at 2b. When it comes to current needs: they change pretty quickly. What looks like a positive today (Swanson with players such as Jefferson Rojas, and a bunch of IFA types behind him) could look pretty thin if Rojas is dealt and the IFA types fail. Plus, it could be a situation where you take Marek Houston and then you trade him to someone who really wants a SS in the winter of 2026! I don't want to like stump for Houston; he's not top of my board either. Witherspoon, Wood, Aloy, Steele...I like those guys more, personally. But taking Houston, I'd be cool with. He's pretty unsexy today, but I really wouldn't be shocked to look back on this draft and five years and talk about Wood being the JT Ginn type, Laviolette being Seth Beer and Houston being Hoerner, too.

Oh, me either! I'd imagine a Houston pick would be met with a lot of talk that the Cubs are unhappy with Dansby Swanson's batting average with RISP in 2025 and the team attempting to unload him as soon as possible. I'd give it five minutes before there was a reddit thread on the exact topic.

Houston would be...fine. He's kind of boring in that he's not like super-fun upsidey like Gage Wood or Kyson Witherspoon could be. He probably is far more likely to be an MLB player than most other picks in that range due his defense. BA has some data on the batted ball profile, the EV's aren't extremely great, but his contact% and especially against velocity is really high. He's pretty passive in the zone so you could point to this and say that the batted ball data and the power would improve even more than it has if you get the guy to swing at the meatballs more often. FWIW, the staff at BA just had a draft and they took Houston above the Cubs pick at 14. The pick was made by Peter Flaherty (Pontes took Aloy at 17) He's a different player than Nico Hoerner in most ways, but he feels like Nico Hoerner did a few years ago; I wasn't wowed by the pick, the upside felt a little limited, but lo-and-behold not only has Hoerner's defense carried him to the majors, his strong contact ability and profile has made him one of the most successful pros in the draft. Houston has that kind of feel to him; whomever picks him won't be super wowed by anything, but you give it a few years and he's starting at shortstop by late 2027 for someone. Especially in this draft, which feels a little less exciting than previous drafts (especially in the mid-late-first rounders), I don't think I'd hate a Houston pick if you liked your ability to continue to add to his power. Go get your fringey-skill, bigger upside picks in rounds two-through-four or something.

Yeah, I really liked his start. I don't want to spoil anything, but have an article in the can looking at what he did during that appearance. Some new data points and tried some new things to effect. I do think he could be moved in July, but I wouldn't be mad if they didn't!

Right. When I said that, it's a league average type of a thing. When I say "we know you'd hit .290" it isn't "every player hits .290 and any difference is unlucky" but that "over the course of the last five years BABIP is pretty stable, so any important deviation from .290 suggests something". That something can be that you are a bad hitter; weak contact=worse BABIP (usually). It can mean you're fast, so you have a higher BABIP. It could mean luck or bad luck. It can mean a bunch of things. Then we can factor in our career BABIP and career batted ball data. It's a deep well. As I said, BABIP on it's own tells us a little. But BABIP with context tells us a ton.

At the very least, I would guess he piggy backs 3-4 innings sometime around Thursday. I have an article in the can on the stuff he did last night, but there was some cool new wrinkles in his game. I'm interested to see more.

I think there was some discourse pregame about Karl Ravech, too. NSBB Bingo!

I honestly do not know what they're doing. The reality is with the amount of data and analytics we have now a days, most orgs make most of the right decisions most of the time. The difference between whatever you perceive to be the 7th best FO and the 23rd best FO is pretty thin when we take it all into account. Data, and the understandings we have now, generally homogenize decisions. You'd have to basically spit on widely accepted norms. The Rockies don't just spit on those norms, they ignore them entirely.

BABIP has no subjective probabilities, it's literally just "batting average on batted balls in play" or "what is your batting average when you hit the ball fair, but it's not a home run?". It erases things like strikeouts and home runs from the equation but still counts all of your singles, ground balls, doubles, popups, etc; as long as it is "in play". While there's no "guaranteed BABIP" league BABIP runs, pretty standard. Let me prove that Here are the last five years league BABIP: .291 (2025), .291 (2024), .297 (2023), .290 (2022), .292 (2021) Basically, we know that if you hit the ball in play, you are likely going to hit like .290 regardless of the year. Even during the steroid era, BABIP was .300 (1998), and .302 (1999)! It only affected things by .10. Where BA's dip, dive and change are in things like when we factor in strikeouts and home runs. If one player strikes out a lot versus one who doesn't, then we see the overall BA change because we were ignoring those things. If one guy has a K% of 30% and another at 20%, they can have the same BABIP but vastly different BAs. We can also increase BABIP by being fast (beat out infield singles) or lower it by being slow. And batted ball data, like launch angle, hard hit%, barrel % all can help earn it. So what we can do is look at someone with, say, a .260 BABIP and diagnose it. If it's a big slow guy who hits a lot of weak contact, that's probably a somewhat earned BABIP. But if a fast guy makes a lot of hard contact is running a .260 BABIP, we can squint and go "hmm, that doesn't make sense". Situations like that suggest for whatever reason, he's probably *not* getting the results he should! Things like xwOBA and xBA (the x stands for expected) are determined through statcast. These won't show up in BABIP, but in other data. Basically, statcast can take the exit velocity, tilt, launch angle, and determine, compared to what normally happens on that exact outcome, how often you should expect a ball to land for a hit. If you hit the ball 105mph on a line, that's usually a hit. If you hit it, instead, right at 3b? That's bad luck, not impossible but bad luck. It's possible for those things to add up and be meaningful, especially at lower sample sizes. I hope that help to answer your question. Thanks for asking! It feels like it's a lot to digest, but really it boils down to our ability to use all the tools we have and figure out if you're doing the right things at the plate, you should have results that follow it. BABIP on it's own isn't super useful, but BABIP, combined with other things can help us paint a picture to help us predict what will happen next. Just because you got a single before, doesn't mean you will continue. By using these model we can more accurately predict who's going to continue to hit, and who won't. (And like I said, I promise there are 29 teams who are using predictive models).

Two things: 1. Recently in Iowa, he had been hitting 94 pretty consistently and averaging 93. So he's throwing harder 2. He only went 40 pitches. Can probably add 1-2mph from the BP Regardless, he's throwing harder than when we first saw him sit in the 91-92 range.

Social Studies, actually! (And I even learned what SOHCAHTOA stood for this year. So math, watch out, here I come).

There is no rudeness here, all kindness; if it's not that, then what is your diagnosis? To clarify, once again over this span he has: maintained typica barrel%, launch angle, and hardhit%, normal walk and strikeout rates. All of his expected data say he's supposed to be hititing around .25 points better than what he is. His BABIP over his last run is .179, which is, unsustainable. Only two hitters in baseball have a lower BABIP in that run, The lowest qualified BABIP in baseball in 2025 is .208, which is at roughly 30 points higher. Last year the lowest sustained BABIP was .225, which is .45 points higher (give or take). If his BABIP over the last 115 PA's was the worst in baseball last year, he'd have .nearly.40 points on his batting average between then and now. Because if it isn't luck and the ball just not landing, it has to be something. There is no magic.

So, there's a pretty obvious understanding in MLB now a days that power fastball / slower curve is a bad combo. Think...Ben Brown. His "deathball"/knuckle curveball gets thrown 90mph or so. Dollander, about a month ago, begun leaning super heavy into the curve, and it worked...for a bit. Lately he's getting crushed. Likely? hitters weren't expecting it, because...why would you do that? Then they got ready for it. Problem with slow-curve (80 mph or so) and mid 90's fastball is that hitters can usually pick up the velo drop on the two pitches easily. And go figure, MLB teams are not biting on the curve at all once they updated the scouting report. Even worse; Coors affects breaking balls and their movement. He's also using sinker, almost exclusively, to lefties. Sinkers have bad R-L splits. It's a pitch you throw to like-hand, not opposite hand. You either speed the curve up and go "deathball" or you use his arm angle (he's very flat) to create natural cut to get lefties and go slider/sweeper heavy to play off of it. He has a great slider! It's all just bad pitching development.