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Post by Underwater Johnson on Aug 17, 2021 1:20:59 GMT -5
Not sure where you got all those numbers.
According to Baseball-Reference, Shaw has played 163 games at 1B in the majors, with 900 chances and a .996 fielding % (obviously not the best defensive metric but for a 1B, it's mostly "did you catch the ball or not?"). In the last 5 seasons, I count 205.2 innings at 1B. It's not a ton but I think he'll remember what to do. He can also play 2B and 3B.
The bottom line is that he's a veteran who's played in the post-season in four different years for three different teams (and logged a .828 OPS in mostly platoon/spot duty). He's got 111 career dongs and his career BB rate is over 10%. He's not going to give away ABs (like Franchy) or be completely overmatched (like Marwin). He won't make a playoff roster without going on a complete tear but he's a guy you shouldn't have to wonder about. And he cost almost nothing, so if he stinks, you cut him knowing that Franchy or Marwin wouldn't have done any better.
Ah well, I was looking at baseball savant which only goes back to 2016. Oops. But I am not making any kind of statement like he can't play 1B. It's just odd that he played only 495 innings at 1B in the last 6 seasons when he was primarily a 1B prospect. Most players do not go backwards on the defensive spectrum and play harder positions. In the minors, Shaw, a 9th round pick and son of a player, was always the guy asked to move off 3B to make way for Michael Almanzar, Garin Cecchini, Kolbrin Vitek. So he played a lot of 1B and probably surprised a lot of people in the FO by just always hitting. Making it to BOS (unlike the guys he had moved aside for in the minors), he had to move around there too, first filling in for a traded Mike Napoli at 1B in 2015, then at 3B for an injured Panda in '16 and then for fast-rising Yoan Moncada at the end of '16. He was traded to MIL to clear the way for Moncada and broke out for the Brewers in 2017 and '18, but even as one of their best hitters he was asked to move to 2B at the end of '18 when the team acquired Mike Moustakas at the deadline. Sadly, that was kind of the end of Shaw as a good player, although he was okay for TOR last year.
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ericmvan
Veteran
Supposed to be working on something more important
Posts: 8,925
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 17, 2021 2:54:47 GMT -5
To give Shaw the 1b starts against righties, essentially 5 days per week given his track record the last three years and his being injured for most of the last two months to me is insane. Maybe they don’t have anyone better but in a pennant race to go this high risk makes me queasy. He's as likely to get waived again tomorrow as that scenario happens. They do not need him. He's just a simple (likely) LH upgrade over the major disappointments of Marwin Gonzalez, Franchy Cordero and Danny Santana. He will be waived on August 24th, after or when Arroyo is activated and when Houck is recalled. At that point there is no room for him on the 26. The only reason they had room for him now is because their fifth starter could be optioned for 10 days and not miss a start.
It's unlikely that they have some magical swing fix that has eluded all the clubs he's played for, but if they did, they wouldn't let him demonstrate it by letting him hit. All that would do is get him claimed by one of the the 25 teams that already passed on him.
They'll work with him for nine days, then hopefully send him down to play in AAA and work on his swing until the end of their season. At that point he'll be in the mix for the last 1 or 2 post-season bench spots along with Munoz, Santana, and Franchy.
This is as good a place as any to think about the two extra September players ... Munoz seems very likely (although he may have to wait until te end of the Worcester season, since he'll likely be seleted and optioned on the 31st to make him post-season eligible). Given that they have 16 legit pitching candidates (the 5 + 2 starters, the 6 trusted relievers for most of the year, Robles, Andriese, and Brasier) they'll have 15 pitchers for much of the time. Injuries or ineffectiveness will likely reduce that to 14 with a week or two left and and open up a spot for DeShields (or Santana, Franchy or Shaw).
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