Not sure why people like Shaw so much, I guess we like his tools and defense which was outstanding in 2025. Ramirez is 3 years younger, gold glove in the minor leagues, came up this year and filled in all over the place and was very solid. Has a higher career ops then shaw at this point and years on him. I would trade shaw in a heartbeat if somebody was interested. Not sure what the market is for him really at this point, but Shaw has tools so that may attract folks. Honestly, two years ago we could gotten a ton for him. He was on and off injured last year so maybe you can right off the struggles as that but the year before he didn't crack a .700 ops.
Chicago Cubs 2026
And the way to accelerate his improvement is to play him every day.
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
Who is old. Cubs need to get younger!
umm, bregman at age 24 was like the best player in the league but that is a different story.
I am not seeing projection models that have him anywhere near bregman production. most have him in the .240 range.
its the great white hope if you ask me, not onboard with him. Team Pedro all the way here.
It sounds like the Cubs are keeping Hottovy. What does he have on Counsell ? Sad that they are keeping this clown. I hope they make a move on a hitting coach. Kelly needs to go. Both Kevin Long is available as of right now with Seattle’s Kevin Seitzer possibly being available. Let’s move on either as that will help fix our hitting issues.
I'd personally avoid any coach connected to the 2026 Mariners.
He is a damn good hitting coach. A disciple of Edgar Martinez. His philosophy is contact hitting, using the entire field. Our current hitting coach believes in over swinging for power and pulling every pitch. We had 5 of our top 10 position players having their worst hitting average of each’s career. Happ, Hoerner, Swanson, Amaya and Busch. All were terrible. We were exposed the last third of the season. If we weren’t hitting home runs we weren’t scoring.
Clown? He's handed a mediocre starting staff and a bullpen of retreads from other teams that were either injured or just bad and he's heading up those reclamation projects. They have no arms in the minors to go to. He's stuck with what he gets, which isn't much because the Cubs are cheap.
I'd look at drafting and development as the primary issue, then continually trying to cut costs with lower tier free agents a close #2.
They did finally draft some pitchers. If the right guys were drafted, they should be ready in how ever many years it takes to get ready for MLB.
He's so damn good that the Mariners were 3rd last in MLB in runs scored and 4th last in OPS. Just because someone learns under one of baseball's greatest hitters doesn't mean that will translate to success.
I don't disagree that the Cubs need to a change at hitting coach, but looking to Seattle isn't it.
And the Cubs led MLB in runs scored at 5.19 runs/game. I don't think hitting was the issue. Batting average does not have a great correlation with runs scored.
The million dollar questions.....
1)Did our scouts hit or miss on their recommendations?
2)If the scouts did hit and they were drafted, can we develop them at the lowest levels and cultivate the takent.
All the big club can do is see what comes through the system and see who's worthy of making the jump. When it comes to pitching, this above as always been a problem. Not sure if 1 or 2 is where the issue is(maybe both?), but the questions need to be asked if we're providing enough resources at that level. Are we hiring the right people and should we have more on staff? I'm not sure how many scouts the Cubs have vs the Brewers, Tampa, Cleveland, etc., but if we're understaffed, that's potentially a Ricketts issue.
Something isn't right down there and it hasn't been for a long time. We bring it back to where this started....the pitching coach can only make chicken salad out of chicken **** so many times.
He's fast, a good fielder, has had only 566 ab as a major leaguer, Hit over .300 in the minors in 750 abs, (.230s in the majors,) can play all over. He's cheap. What's not to like?
Just don't plan to build your team around him. And KEEP Ramirez too!