Matt Shaw Giving Strong Kris Bryant Vibes as Cubs Camp Opens
Friday marks the official opening of spring training for position players, though many of them have been in Mesa since at least early January. And now that a certain someone has signed elsewhere, attention finally turns to the players who are actually on the roster. Well, I guess in this case it’s someone who isn’t on the 40-man…yet. Matt Shaw has been the presumptive starter at third base for a while now and he remains so now that the Cubs’ bid to add a high-profile corner man fell well short.
With few viable options currently available, the job is Shaw’s to lose. Between his rapid rise to the top of the organization’s prospect rankings and a need to work on his defense at third, the former Terrapin could be compared to Kris Bryant. There are even similarities in both players’ humble, aw-shucks demeanors.
“Oh my gosh, yeah, that’s my goal for this spring,” Shaw said when asked about breaking camp with the big club. “Being able to do that would be amazing. It would be a dream come true, something I’ve been dreaming of for a long time. Having the front office, coaching staff, players kinda believe in me and believe that I can help this team win a division and move forward with that would be amazing.”
“Having the front office, coaching staff, players kinda believe in me and believe that I can help this team win a division and move forward with that would be amazing.”
Matt Shaw has dreams of winning the NL Central in 2025 ? pic.twitter.com/73og7yCPe9
— Marquee Sports Network (@WatchMarquee) February 14, 2025
Someone out there — looking at you, Mike Bryant — is probably searching for a blood pressure pill due to my comp, and that’s understandable. As good as Shaw has been and may yet be, he’s no KB. Bryant was one of the most obvious can’t-miss prospects in recent memory and, outside of being dominated by James Shields in his debut, he proved almost immediately that he was one of the best players on the team. So why would the Cubs roll with the less-heralded Shaw when they forced Bryant to stay at Triple-A in order to gain an extra year of service time?
I’m glad you asked because there are two big reasons.
First, there were no prospect promotion incentives at play when Bryant came up. Under the current CBA, teams can earn additional draft picks if they promote their top prospects at the start of the season. Those prospects have to accrue a year of service time and then win Rookie of the Year or finish top three in either MVP or Cy Young voting. If a player accrues a year of service but does not finish high enough in any of those awards, they retain their eligibility until they reach arbitration.
Second, there’s no Mike Olt on the roster. Though revisionist history and common sense dictate Bryant should have supplanted Olt sooner, we’re not talking about some aging veteran like Trey Mancini or Eric Hosmer. Olt was the 49th overall pick by the Rangers in the 2010 draft and opened the 2012 season as the No. 43 prospect in baseball. He was considered the key piece in the trade that also brought Justin Grimm and Carl Edwards Jr. to Chicago in exchange for Matt Garza, so the pedigree was there.
Olt was hit on the hand by a pitch less than a week into the 2015 season, his second as the Cubs’ Opening Day third baseman, and the rest is history. I won’t bore you here with the tale of how I met him at a bar in Mesa while watching Bryant and the Cubs play in the snow against the Pirates. Nor will I get into the weird coincidence of catching up with Olt more recently through Pelotero, the player intelligence platform for which he heads up sales.
It’s just really odd how I’ve managed to get tangled up with two former Cubs whose career paths are so closely linked. Anyway, what are we supposed to be talking about? Ah yes, Shaw.
Even conservative projections for his rookie year are very strong, and we’ve already heard strong praise from those outside the organization about his ability to learn and adapt. I’ve noted before that one scout I spoke with a while ago called Shaw the best hitter in minor league baseball last year. That’s not necessarily a matter of any individual metric but of his overall production and makeup. Shaw has that “it” factor you can’t quantify. At the risk of being trite and repetitive, he’s a dog.
I was never high on the idea of adding Alex Bregman, so I’m not just smoking a copium-laced fatty when I say I think missing out on him will end up being better for the Cubs in the end. Even if we’re not talking about one of the best three-year runs in team history, Shaw will be an impact player on the North Side.