Matt Shaw's once glaring flaw has become his greatest asset

Going into the 2025 season, Chicago Cubs infielder Matt Shaw faced serious doubts about his ability to play third base. But this recent metric has officially put that narrative to bed, as Shaw has suddenly become one of the game's best defenders at the hot corner.

A post from Marquee Sports Network's X account highlights the fact that Shaw is second among all big league third basemen with nine defensive runs saved this year.

This is an incredible turn of events, considering this is the first year Shaw has even played the position full-time. And even though he missed an entire month of the season when he was demoted to Triple-A, Shaw still has more DRS than perennial Gold Glove candidates like Matt Chapman and Nolan Arenado.

Shaw spent much of the 2024 campaign learning how to play the position in the minor leagues, while splitting time at second base and shortstop, the positions he saw most of his playing time at in college. After the Cubs parted ways with every third baseman they fielded last year, trading their 2024 first-round pick Cam Smith, and failing to sign Alex Bregman in the offseason, they gave Shaw the opportunity, and he's thrived.

Defense has been a major strength for the Cubs this season

Shaw joins a slew of Cubs starters who will likely be named finalists for the Gold Glove Award at their respective positions. These players include Ian Happ, Dansby Swanson, Nico Hoerner, and potentially Michael Busch. Meanwhile, Pete Crow-Armstrong seems like a shoo-in for the prestigious award in center field, where he has cemented himself as one of the best defensive players in baseball, let alone center field.

Having six of the nine positions on the field manned by this kind of talent is a major confidence boost to the team's pitching staff, which features a lot of players who tend to induce contact rather than relying on the strikeout (Jameson Taillon, Shota Imanaga, Matthew Boyd).

Shaw's reliability at the hot corner is a major asset and an excuse to keep him in the lineup when he is slumping at the plate. He is still young enough to go through streaky stretches with the bat, so having gold-glove caliber defense to fall back on makes him much more valuable to the team. And thankfully so, because there are not a lot of third base options in free agency this winter.