Matt Shaw is the Cubs’ best prospect since Kris Bryant and will get a “long look” at third base during spring training to see if he can do what his predecessor couldn’t: break camp with the big club. To be fair, Bryant more than earned the job in 2015 and was held at Triple-A just long enough for the Cubs to get an extra year of service time. And just because a lot of folks still like to defend the Cubs on that one, it’s the very definition of service-time manipulation.

Having prospect promotion incentives in place now has mitigated some of the more egregious activities by rewarding extra draft picks to teams whose top young players come up early and win awards. Unless, that is, the prospect’s name is Paul Skenes. The NL Rookie of the Year did earn himself a full year of service time, but the Pirates missed out on a compensation pick because Skenes was in Indianapolis until May 11. Woof.

In any case, Shaw looks like the odds-on favorite to be the everyday third baseman on the North Side and he carries some lofty projections as such. Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS system put the tandem of Shaw and Rule 5 pickup Gage Workman at 2.7 WAR for the 2025 season, production the likes of which the Cubs haven’t seen since KB. Among all the other semi-regular third basemen the Cubs have employed since trading Bryant in 2021, only four — Patrick Wisdom, Matt Duffy, David Bote Nick Madrigal — have posted more than one win above replacement in a season. Wisdom is the only one to exceed two wins, and he needed 28 homers to do it as a “rookie.”

But when you look at the projections for Shaw generated by fantasy baseball guru Jon Anderson, you have to think the leaderboards will be reset quickly. Not that anyone should be expecting an incredible run like Bryant had over his first three seasons with 20.6 fWAR, the ROY and MVP awards, and a World Series title. But hey, putting up a 20/20 season with just 450 plate appearances would be awesome.

Anderson explained his methodology in the X thread linked above and you can check it all out if you’re so inclined, but suffice to say it’s both lofty and very conservative at the same time. That’s primarily a function of giving Shaw only two-thirds of the season in the bigs. Extrapolate the line out over the full year and it’s obviously much better than 450 PAs, a .254/.323/.457 slash, 20 HR, 65 R, 63 RBI, 20 SB.

While these stats were coughed up by a computer program with several assumptions applied to make everything work, one scout I spoke with believes they’re way too light. Part of that is the experience constraint, as this person believes Shaw will spend the entire season at the highest level.

”Best hitter in the minors leagues this season,” the scout said about Shaw.

Keep in mind that he wasn’t talking about the highest batting average, most homers, or anything like that. Rather, it’s a combination of production and makeup. Shaw is not only a chimera comprised of junkyard dog and baseball rat, he’s also a very analytical and coachable player who applies instruction quickly in an effort to get better. We saw that recently with his play at third for Team USA in the Premier12 tournament this fall.

“He had the opportunity to work with two of the best infield coaches that we have in the United States: Dino Ebel and Keith Johnson,” Team USA manager Mike Scioscia told Jason Coskrey of The Japan Times. “The work they put in with Matt, it paid off quickly. You saw him play great defensive third base in this tournament. It’s a newer position for him, but with the Cubs, I think that’s where they’re projecting him to play as he gets in the major leagues.

“On the defensive side, he improved so much in just one month. On the offensive side, I think you saw his ability to drive the ball to all parts of the ballpark, and he runs the bases well. He’s got a great future.”

But when evaluating his defense, all the Cubs really need is for Shaw to not be a butcher. This is a team that gave over 690 innings each to Madrigal, Wisdom, and Christoper Morel over the last three seasons. Only one of them played solid defense, but his weak offensive production made that a moot point. Shaw will always be a bat-first guy, so his ability to break camp and stay in Chicago will depend on how well he adjusts to MLB pitching.

Shaw embraced the concept of motor preference while playing for head coach Matt Swope at the University of Maryland, implementing aspects of the funky setup and big leg kick that he’ll quiet down with two strikes. Rather than a rigid set of patterns or mechanics, motor preference is all about understanding how an individual’s body wants to move and then getting them into the right positions to leverage that knowledge. So when you see that pigeon-toed stance exaggerated stride, just know that’s the best way for this particular aerial/axial/associated mover to do damage at the plate.

It’s actually very similar to the way Pete Crow-Armstrong’s high school coach helped him with kinesthetic awareness as a young teenager. The ability to understand how his body was moving through space essentially makes PCA a gymnast out there in center field and allowed him to make the necessary adjustments to go from struggling hitter to downright menace in the second half.

Perhaps even more than their general aversion to big contracts, the Cubs’ faith in Shaw is what kept them from seriously considering Alex Bregman or another costly corner man. Bregman put up monster seasons for the Astros a few years back but has settled in at 4-5 fWAR over the last three years and figures to remain there as he heads into his age-31 season. That’s not necessarily the kind of production you want to see for $30 million a year over the next 6-8 years.

If Shaw is who many evaluators believe, he should be able to at least get close to Bregman’s production over the next couple-three seasons at roughly 1/30th the cost. That’s not being cheap, it’s just a much wiser investment that presumably allows Jed Hoyer or his successor to spend elsewhere to fill other needs. While I do expect the Cubs to pursue a stopgap type like Yoan Moncada just to provide a safety net, I am very excited to see what Shaw can do and I’m confident he’ll be worth the hype.