The Chicago Cubs are calling up top prospect Matt Shaw, who will join the team Monday in Miami. Shaw, 23, began the 2025 season on the big-league roster, but was sent down to Triple-A on April 15. Now, after a little more than a month in the minors, Shaw is returning and hopefully won’t ever need to be optioned back down again.

Shaw has been on fire the past couple weeks with the Iowa Cubs. In his last 11 games at Triple-A, Shaw went 13-for-44, with five home runs, two doubles and a triple. Overall, in this stint at Triple-A, Shaw posted a 150 wRC+, slashing .286/.409/.560, which also included more walks than strikeouts in 110 plate appearances.

Via The Athletic.

Shaw’s improvements gave the Cubs enough confidence that he was once again ready to join the big-league roster. After being with the club through the toughest schedule in baseball and facing some of the best pitching in the game, Shaw should have a slightly easier time these next few weeks as the Cubs enter a stretch of the schedule that includes the Miami Marlins, Colorado Rockies and Washington Nationals.

Shaw struggled in 18 games with the Cubs to begin the season. The right-handed hitter posted a .535 OPS, slashing .172/.294/.241, which included a lot of weak contact.

Since Shaw was optioned on April 15, the Cubs have gotten next to nothing from the third basemen filling in. They’ve combined to record a 38 wRC+, second worst in MLB, while being worth -0.5 fWAR, also the second-worst mark in baseball.

The Cubs have a deep lineup and are currently the second-highest scoring offense in MLB, so it’s not like they desperately need Shaw to come in and give the team a boost. With his struggles and the way that he was struggling against MLB pitching Shaw did need to take a step back and regroup. The positive is that he has indeed turned it around and is back to doing what he does best, hitting the ball hard all over the field.

Matt Shaw’s Hard Contact

It’s been a little more than four weeks since the Cubs optioned Matt Shaw to Triple-A, where the organization was hopeful that their top prospect would regain the tools that made him successful climbing up through the system. Shaw posted below-average numbers at the plate in 18 games to begin the 2025 season that featured a lot of bad swing decisions, weak contact and an overall sense that Shaw was not playing like himself.

Following a slow start in Iowa after his demotion, Shaw appeared to have flipped the switch. He had a four-game stretch at the end of April, when Shaw was 10-for-17, with a home run and three doubles. However, as Michael Cerami wrote in Bleacher Nation, those results looked good on paper, but it was more of the same from Shaw. He was making plenty of contact, which he did with the Cubs, but even the hits came via weak contact.

Via Bleacher Nation.

Indeed, only five of those 16 balls in play qualify as hard contact (31.2%), and that’s an average exit velocity of just 86.9 MPH. Compare those stats to the production of the average big league hitter in MLB (40.4 hard%, 89.4 MPH EV) and you can see why I’m a little less enthused by the TYPE of good results he’s getting.

At the end of the day you’ll take the results regardless of how they’re achieved, but it does raise questions whether or not it can be sustainable. It’s not too complicated, the more often you make hard contact the better results you’ll get over the long run.

And guess what, Shaw is doing it again. He’s back to consistently hitting the ball hard.

On Thursday, Shaw capped off a double header sweep by hitting a walk-off home run in Iowa. It was his second home run of the game after also hitting a leadoff homer to start the nightcap.

In this recent hot stretch covering his last four games Shaw is 6-for-16, with three home runs. Now, let’s take a closer look at the batted ball data from this week.

May 13
Lineout, 102.1mph, 22 degrees
Groundout, 109.9mph, -19 degrees
Flyout, 89.8mph, 25 degrees
Homerun, 105.1mph, 23 degrees
Lineout, 105.5mph, 14 degrees

May 14
Groundout, 64.2mph, -39 degrees
Lineout, 97.3mph, 20 degrees
Single, 89.8mph, 3 degrees
Single, 98.1mph, 5 degrees

May 15 (Game 1)
Single, 86.3mph, 11 degrees
Groundout, 92.9mph, -13 degrees
Groundout, 62.7mph, 15 degrees

May 15 (Game 2)
Homerun, 95.6mph, 27 degrees
Groundout, 103.2mph, 8 degrees
Homerun, 102.5mph, 31 degrees

So, back in April when Shaw went on a hot streak he only had a 31.2% hard-hit rate with an average exit velocity of 86.9mph. This time around, Shaw hit 9 of 15 (60%) balls in play with an exit velocity above 95mph, which is what qualifies as hard contact. Overall, out of those 15 balls in play, Shaw recorded an average exit velocity of 93.7mph.

It’s not just a four-game stretch either. Last week Shaw had 14 balls in play and seven of them were hard contact. That’s now an eight-game stretch in which every other time Shaw hits the ball, he’s hitting it 95mph or harder.

The results have been great and the way Shaw is getting to those results is even better. His first four games at Triple-A this year were brutal, as Shaw went 1-for-13. Since then, Shaw is 22-for-68, slashing .324/.418/.603, in 79 plate appearances. That includes the same amount of walks as strikeouts, 10.

Even with the awful start, Shaw has a 144 wRC+ in 98 plate appearances at Triple-A. Not sure how much more the Cubs need to see, but Shaw is doing his thing again and it’s great to see. Hopefully that’ll be in a Cubs uniform sooner rather than later.