The Cubs opened the 2024 season with top prospect Matt Shaw in their lineup, hoping he could immediately step up and seize the everyday job at third base. The former first-round pick struggled in 18 games before being optioned to Triple-A, but it seems like he’s set to rejoin the roster after an impressive run in Des Moines. Cubs skipper Craig Counsell told the team’s beat yesterday that another promotion for Shaw was “under consideration” (link via Sahadev Sharma of The Athletic). Jon Heyman of the New York Post reports this morning that Shaw is indeed expected to join the roster today — likely at the expense of veteran infielder Nicky Lopez, whom Chicago will try to trade (presumably after a DFA). Lopez did not travel to Miami with the Cubs for their upcoming series against the Marlins, Heyman adds.
Shaw, 23, hit just .172/.294/.241 in 68 plate appearances during his trial run to open the season. He walked an impressive 10 times in that small sample (14.7%) but also fanned on 18 occasions (26.5%). His batted-ball metrics were at the bottom of the scale; he averaged only 82.7 mph off the bat, barreled just one ball and posted a lowly 22.5% hard-hit rate (all per Statcast).
Sharma reports that the Cubs sent Shaw to Triple-A to scale back the size of a leg kick that had been part of his mechanics at the plate for years — a trait they believed would help his swing play better against big league pitching. Shaw struggled a bit early on, with three hits in 27 plate appearances after being sent down. Sharma notes that he wasn’t working with the new leg kick in games yet until this past week, but Shaw got hot at the plate with his old mechanics as he worked to hone his new ones — and upon incorporating that new, quieter leg kick into Triple-A games this weekend he homered four times in two games.
It’s hard to attribute that solely to the change in his timing mechanism, but Shaw currently boasts five round-trippers in his past six games and is hitting .321/.418/.641 with more walks (13.2%) than strikeouts (12.1%) in his past 91 trips to the plate. He’s piled up a dozen extra-base hits (six homers, five doubles, one triple), gone 5-for-5 in stolen base attempts and seen jumps in his batted-ball data (88.6 mph average exit velocity, 109.9 mph max exit velo, 43.8% hard-hit rate).
By measure of wRC+, the Cubs have had the second-worst production in MLB from their third basemen in 2025, leading only the division-rival Brewers. Chicago third baseman have turned in a feeble .184/.271/.222 batting line — 53% worse than league-average production at the plate. Much of that is due to Shaw’s own struggles early on, but the Cubs have received negligible production overall from the group of Lopez, Jon Berti, Gage Workman, Vidal Brujan and Justin Turner when they’ve manned the hot corner as well.
Lopez, 30, has appeared in 14 games since signing with the Cubs but has just 22 plate appearances. He’s been used more as a defensive specialist and has gone just 1-for-18 with four walks and three strikeouts in 22 plate appearances overall.