Cubs utilityman Matt Shaw knows his name is churning through the rumor mill, with the trade deadline almost two weeks away. He just doesn’t want to hear about it.
Sometimes, though, it’s out of his control.
“The only time I’ll know if I’m in trade talk is when a family member says, ‘Hey, I read this,’ and I’m like, ‘Oh, I didn’t know that,’ ” Shaw told the Sun-Times on Sunday.
Indeed, while Shaw recovers from a sprained left hand, his name is all over the place as possible trade bait for the pitching-hungry Cubs. Having shown his versatility — he has played everywhere but pitcher, catcher and shortstop this season — the 2023 first-round draft pick might help the Cubs net some quality pitching.
But he learned during his rookie season, when he was yearning to know whether he’d made the big-league roster for the Japan Series, that it’s best for his well-being to stay in the dark.
“I was reading every news article about the team because I didn’t know anything,” Shaw said. “So I got really caught up in that, and it was super stressful. It was in my mind all the time. But I learned from that experience I can’t watch any of that stuff. And that was a really helpful lesson. Now I don’t read anything, I don’t look at anything.”
Shaw’s focus is on healing from the injury he suffered fouling off a pitch June 28. He said it’s still sore, and teammates who’ve had hand/wrist issues have told him they can take a long time to heal. Shaw grew impatient with the injury and wanted to tough it out, but he realized it was best to take a step back and let it heal.
The Cubs are trying everything to expedite his recovery.
“The technology in the training room is unbelievable,” Shaw said. “I don’t know what it’s all doing, but we’re doing four, five different things every single day. Ice and heat, we have a red-light lazer, some sort of electricity.”
Shaw said he has been able to stay in shape by throwing, sprinting and working out. The one thing he can’t do is hit. But that hasn’t been a problem for him this season. His slash numbers are all up from his rookie season, and his OPS+ is 105 — 136 against left-handers. Shaw said he doesn’t know when he’ll be able to hit again.
“It was one of those things where I just assumed that by now it would be healed and I’d be building up,” he said. “But that’s kind of the thing about assuming things. You set expectations, you don’t really know how the body is going to respond. I’ve never had an injury like this before.”
