What did the Chicago Cubs get from their picks in Rounds 1-5 of the 2023 MLB Draft?

1st Round Pick: Matt Shaw SS (University of Maryland)

We’ve covered Matt Shaw pretty extensively at Cubbies Crib and here are some of the thoughts we’ve had in the last couple of weeks with a few sprinkles of new information.

Matt Shaw is an interesting player. He can hit for contact and he can hit for power, so it’s the bat that will likely make him a first-round pick. He’s hit over 50 home runs while in college with 46 of those coming in his sophomore and junior seasons. This year he walked more often (43) than he struck out (42) and he showed some speed and baserunning prowess by stealing 18-19 bases he attempted.

MLB.com points out in their scouting report that he’s turned a lot of heads due to his ability to hit with a wooden bat as well. While Kyle Teel struggled a little bit in the Cape Cod League, Shaw mashed. He put together a .360/.432/.574 slash line and came away as the MVP of the league. That kind of thing really matters to front offices and even if he can’t stick at shortstop long term the bat may be Major League ready by the end of the 2024 season. 

Keith Law of the Athletic had the Cubs taking Matt Shaw in a mock draft and he referenced the current Front Office’s interest in advanced metrics and mentioned Shaw’s numbers:

Shaw is one of the best pure hitters in the draft class with metrics to match, something the Cubs are clearly aware of given their choice of Cade Horton with their first pick last year. 

Fangraphs has a good write-up on him that compares his compact 5’11 frame to Dan Uggla but also talks about some of his drawbacks. His arm may limit him to second base, which isn’t a massive problem as the Cubs still covet middle-of-the-diamond kinds of players. 

A while back we looked at Matt Shaw and said this:

That being said, the thing that gives me a bit of concern is that they discussed his inability to cover the upper third of the plate which reminds me of a college bat that I was sure was the real deal. He put up stellar contact and power numbers and was drafted in the first round and now finds himself in AAA due to that same inability to catch up to the high fastball. I’m not saying Matt Shaw is Keston Hiura, I’m just saying that the profile of a player that can only cover ⅔ of the plate scares me a bit. 

After the draft Keith Law had this to say about the Cubs first round pick:

The Cubs took Maryland shortstop Matt Shaw, seventh on my Big Board, with the 13th-overall pick, landing maybe the best college hitter in the draft outside of Dylan Crews and Wyatt Langford. Shaw hits all kinds of pitching and hits it well, with very strong exit velocities and hard-hit/Barrel rates, while using the whole field like an advanced hitter should. He lacks the arm for shortstop but should have zero trouble at second base.

Regardless of where Shaw plays he seems to have the bat to carry the position and should be able to help bring some power to a lineup starved for it. 

2nd Round Pick: Jax Wiggins RHP (University of Arkansas)

We wrote up a piece on Jax Wiggins on the second day of the draft and here’s what we had to say:

Jax Wiggins was the Chicago Cubs' pick in the second compensatory round out of the University of Arkansas. There are extremely mixed reviews on him considering his enormous fastball and potentially devastating slider juxtaposed against his inability to keep the ball in the strike zone as a sophomore and the injury that knocked him out of his junior season.

That being said, the Cubs could have been looking at a couple of things here:

They could legitimately see a starter that has the ability to touch 100 MPH, a slider that can be used as an out pitch, and with some development a third or fourth offering that could allow him to stick in a rotation.

(More excitingly) They could see an under-slot option that can be used out of the bullpen as a weapon soon, making the decision to take Matt Shaw in the first round make even more sense as the team is looking to open the contention window sooner rather than later.

Let’s talk about option number two. This is a college pitcher that was taken (by Keith Law and MLB Pipeline’s projections) about 30 picks earlier than anticipated based on his value. This is a pitcher that dealt with an injury last season and was already looked at by some as a relief candidate. The Cubs lost a draft pick by signing Dansby Swanson and Jameson Taillon in the offseason so their bonus pool was already smaller than normal, so going under slot makes sense in order to be able to take advantage of the high school talent still available going into day two of the draft.

Even if he signs for the slot bonus of $1.10 Million, and even if he ends up pitching out of the pen, I like the pick. 

Fangraphs gives him a present 60 grade on the fastball and a 55 on the slider with projectability to turn it into a 60-grade pitch as well. Keith Law said, “ He showed an extremely fast arm and got on top of the ball well from a 3/4 slot, giving depth to the slider and devastating fade to the changeup when he finished it.” And MLB Pipeline believed in his ability to get the command and control in line due to his exceptional athleticism. 

If that’s not a solid 2nd round pick I’m not sure what is.

3rd Round Pick: Josh Rivera SS (University of Florida)

Rivera definitely saved his best performance for his final college season. He never hit above .300 in a season prior to his senior year. He never had an OBP over .400 and he never had a slugging percentage over .440. 

In his senior year, he hit .348/.447/.617 playing shortstop for the team that came within a game of a National Championship while walking more often (46) than he struck out (35) and hitting for power (19 home runs) and stealing bases (18-for-22). 

It would be ludicrous to not be worried about his age as he’ll be 23 before the end of this MLB season, but the bat is advanced and he should be able to move quickly through the system. He reminds me a bit of Jonathan India in his draft-eligible season, not just because they both played for the Gators, so to steal him as a potential under slot signing as a college senior in the third round is huge. 

Here’s what Sahadev Sharma had to say about him:

The Cubs see him as a player who finally saw it all come together. Rivera had a huge jump in exit velocities this past season, which led to a big jump in power output. He wasn’t on radars as a third-rounder coming into the season but opened eyes with strength gains that translated into on-field performance. The more the Cubs watched him, the more they liked his ability to step up in the biggest, high-leverage moments

And after the draft, this is what Keith Law had to say about the pick:

Josh Rivera was one of the best college seniors in the entire draft class, hitting the ball much harder this year than ever before while still playing plus defense at shortstop. He hit 19 homers in 2023, more than he’d hit in the previous three seasons for the Gators combined (16). He’ll be 23 in September, so time’s a-wastin’, but I am a believer and hope he gets the chance to move quickly to Double A.

4th Round Pick: Will Sanders RHP (University of South Carolina)

The two pitchers the Cubs took definitely have some rough edges to smooth out. While Wiggins was injured, Sanders was kind of just bad. During his freshman season he had a 3.54 ERA with 54 strikeouts across 53.1 innings in the best conference in college baseball giving a lot of scouts something to dream on.  

His sophomore season didn’t see massive improvements but he did lower his ERA to 3.43 with 91 strikeouts over 89.1 innings. 

However, last season the wheels fell off a little bit as he only threw 62.2 innings with a 5.46 ERA. He struck out more batters per inning, but he walked nearly as many batters (26) as he did his sophomore season (31) despite throwing nearly 30 fewer innings. 

The batting average against has always stayed around .245-.250 so it appears that the problems he faced this year were due almost entirely to the walks and that is another thing that he has in common with 2nd round pick Jax Wiggins. 

Keith Law had this to say about the pick:

South Carolina starter Will Sanders had an awful draft year after coming into the spring with some first-round talk; the velocity and slider were there but his delivery was out of whack and he became over-reliant on the slider when hitters jumped on his fastball. He needs to use his changeup more to develop it as a third pitch and finish stronger on his front side so the fastball isn’t so appealing to hitters.

If the Cubs have the magic to change Sanders and Wiggins into strike-throwers they may well have gotten a couple of steals in the second and fourth rounds as both guys were potential first-rounders entering the season. 

5th Round Pick: Michael Carico C (Davidson University)

This is one of my favorite picks of the draft. College numbers will lie to you. The use of metal bats, pitchers that can’t consistently control their stuff, and conferences that have vastly different competition levels can create stats that are impossible to replicate. 

That being said, Carico’s stats were something else. He missed much of his junior season due to a hand injury but in the 21 games he played as a DH, he hit .350/.514/.688 with seven homers and more walks (17) than strikeouts (14). Those numbers are good enough to warrant spending a fifth-round pick on a guy, but the numbers that likely got Carico drafted came in his sophomore year.

As a catcher, the most demanding defensive position on a baseball field, he hit .406/.559/.843 across 54 games with 21 homers and 21 doubles. He can hit for average, he can hit for power and he’s never been thrown out stealing a base on his five career attempts.

Keith Law had this to say on the pick:

Catcher Michael Carico missed a chunk of the year due to a broken hand, but the Davidson backstop mashed when he returned from the injury, showing more power than before and rarely whiffing. He hasn’t seen good velocity in college and struggled against it last summer. He can probably stay at catcher, and if he shows he can hit better pitching he can be at least a backup.

If he sticks at catcher and can be half of the offensive player he was in college that’s one of the most impactful hitting catchers in the league. If he can’t stick at catcher and the Cubs can move him through the system quickly he’ll be a guy that can DH at Wrigley Field much sooner than later.

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