Chicago Cubs News: Why the Cubs drafted SS Matt Shaw over a pitcher in the 1st round

The Chicago Cubs spent their first-round pick on Matt Shaw, a shortstop from the University of Maryland. The pick was the right move, and we’re going to spend some time diving into why that is true by removing Matt Shaw from the equation, but if you’re looking for a breakdown of the pick you should check out some of our recent coverage of Shaw and the draft as a whole. 

Baseball fans like to have their cakes and eat it too. They like to point out that a team should take the best player available in the draft, but then they decide that a perceived lack of quality at a position should necessitate drafting a player at that position. They like to point to a problem on the current major league roster and in the same breath point out that so much can change between the draft and the player being drafted getting promoted to the majors that the current construction of the roster shouldn’t matter.

Baseball is hard. Talking about baseball is hard. But at the end of the day, we all want the Chicago Cubs to field the best possible roster of major league players and minor league prospects, and drafting Matt Shaw was the correct decision to make that a reality for several reasons.