The Cubs seemed to shake off some of their malaise taking two of three from the Pirates, three of five from the Brewers and then starting their West Coast road trip with a three game sweep of the Lost Angeles Angels. They’ll enter today’s three game series against the San Francisco Giants five and a half games back of the division leading Brewers and solidly in control of the first Wild Card spot. A hot start to the season masked a 16-16 stint since the All Star Break prior to the Angels sweep. And
while a lot of the Cubs stars were struggling after the midsummer classic, one rookie in particular seemed to figure something out at the plate: third baseman Matt Shaw.
Since the All Star Break Shaw is hitting .298/.343/.691 with nine home runs in 102 plate appearances. He’s walking 6.9 percent of the time and only striking out 18.6 percent of the time. If you’re more of a visual type, here’s what Shaw’s 15-game rolling wOBA looks like this season according to FanGraphs:
You can see the upward trend at the All Star Break, and also the sustained improvement over the last 33 games. You can also see some of the improvements Shaw has made in comparing plate appearances earlier in the season with those from later in the season. Take, for example, this strikeout against the Twins on July 10 [VIDEO].
Compared with this home run against the Brewers on August 20 [VIDEO].
Shaw is set up a bit more open in the later plate appearance and while there is still a leg kick, it’s less of a timing mechanism and more of a way to reset his stance and drive the ball. There is a measurable and substantial difference in Shaw’s approach at the plate early in the season vs. later in the season, as we can see comparing his positioning data from Statcast below:
Matt Shaw’s position in the box before July:
Matt Shaw’s position in the box since the All Star Break:
In addition to the slightly more open stance, you can see that Shaw is pulling the ball more and making slightly more ideal launch contact since the All Star Break below.
First up, attack angle data from through the end of June:
Next, that same data since the All Star Break:
That stance change is visible in this data as well. We can also see that Shaw is pulling the ball more and hitting it at an ideal launch angle in six percent more of his swings.
Baseball is a constant game of adjustments and Shaw is certainly in the early stages of adjusting to MLB. That said, these are impressive developments that have certainly contributed to Shaw’s improvements at the plate since mid-July.
