The Brewers have placed infielder Travis Shaw on outright waivers, according to Peter Gammons and Will Sammon, both of The Athletic.
Signed to a minor league deal in the offseason, Shaw had his contract selected by the Brewers in March. That contract came with a guarantee of $1.5MM. He appeared in 56 games, splitting his time between first and third base, before going on the IL with a dislocated shoulder, producing a disappointing line of .191/.279/.337, a wRC+ of 68. Since that time, the club has shored up its corner infield with the acquisitions of Rowdy Tellez and Eduardo Escobar, both of whom have been excellent since joining the Brew Crew. It seems that this has left Shaw, who began a rehab assignment July 27th, the odd man out.
This marks yet another downturn in Shaw’s seesaw career. After coming to Milwaukee in a trade with the Red Sox, Shaw was incredible for his first two years with the Brewers, hitting over 30 home runs in both 2017 and 2018, producing a combined line of .258/.347/.497 with a wRC+ of 120. However, 2019 went completely in the opposite direction, a miserable .157/.281/.270 campaign, wRC+ of 48, that caused the team to opt for not tendering him a contract for 2020. The Blue Jays picked him up and saw Shaw rebound slightly to a line of .239/.306/.411 and a wRC+ of 92. Unfortunately, the return to Milwaukee resulted in his production turning downwards yet again.
Shaw will now almost certainly clear waivers and become a free agent. He is still owed about $400K of the $1.5MM on his contract. Any team that signs Shaw would only have to pay him the prorated league minimum, with the Brewers on the hook for the rest.
If he clears waivers, I don’t think those incentives matter. New contract.
I think you are right. I think all bonuses are void UNLESS a contract is traded.
Appears the story was updated, so we can all return to our Saturday’s knowing our hard work is done.
Probably then.
Back to the Red Sox on a minors deal. When the Dalbec experiment is over maybe he can catch lightning in a bottle. The Mayor of Ding-Dong city!!
I don’t think the Dalbec experiment is ending soon, he’s started having better ABs lately and getting lots of hits and rbis
He hit a homer as I was reading this
dennyd is licking his chops ready to troll on this thread, time to extole the virtues of the great hall-of-famer to be Travis Shaw and how DD stripped the farm by ever trading him.
He was flash in the pan like Middlebrooks. Nothing more, nothing less.
I was watching the Angles play the other day. Spent time on Jo Adell and Brandon Marsh – 22 and 23 year-old respectively. They looked like they were making good progress both at bat and in the field (and having fun playing).
For the past year or so posters here have been bashing them. Apparently they’re supposed to come in from the minor leagues in their early 20’s and immediately put up .300 / .375 / .450 / .870, else they’re failures (I watched Soto do well with the Nationals in mid-season of his 1st year at age 19, and wrote here that he was already a better player than Harper…..the same stat watchers – that hadn’t watched him play – told me I was full of hyperbole).
Seems the same thing is happening with Mr. Dalbec, the Red Sox and their fans [sic].
At least 95% of the posters here look at spreadsheets, sort some columns, and make judgements about players that they have not seen play. They cannot comprehend that those numbers in the columns they’re looking at depend on variables put into formulas. They don’t begin to understand the variables. Consequently, they have no perspective. They do not factor in what sort of role a player is fulfilling on the team he plays for, what sort of competition he’s playing against, or what goals the team has for him. They have no comprehension of how baseball is played, because the only baseball they played was on a computer. Apparently they also never had to work at a job where they started off on one thing and over the years either got better and took on more responsibility; or their “productivity” immediately hit a wall so they log onto a chatroom at work each day passing judgement on others, while joining the gossip at the workplace.
These people will dump on all young players with moronic juvenile put-downs. However, if the players surface 3 years later with another organization and have gotten enough experience to become productive, the same posters dump on the FO that let them go.
It’s human nature. The blind leading the blind. Those with no worldly experience that pass judgements on others based on statistics that they don’t have the ability to interpret. So….whatever floats your boat.
And……
The big market (particularly Boston and NYC) fans as well as other entitled spectators – that think if the cheap owners that are making money hand over fist would just spend more on name players……so what if they get a multi-year contract and have maybe one good year…it’s worth it – then all teams they comment on would make to the WS each year.
I see why a few quality writers here that I used to chat with left over the years. Gets sillier and sillier.
Samuel: VERY few people are open to, or could even apprehend, your Wisdom. So make sure you don’t get frustrated by low thumbs-up totals while obtuse dufuses are getting many. Understand that it’s just obtuse dufuses ****ing one another.
This is getting creepy…….
Samuel:
Who were Angles playing? The Saxons?
You’re reading way too much into those that jump the gun, and declare any young player a bust, or a future AS. The simple explanation is, those that do haven’t had enough experience watching baseball to know that it takes time to know whether a guy has a future or not.
It has nothing to do with stats, or any analytics. There is value in seeing guys play, but the numbers are more definitive, and usually support what is seen. I can guarantee you, the most analytically driven people are those in MLB FOs, and none of them are giving up on Jo Adell, or any other highly regarded prospect, that hasn’t been given enough time show their true ability.
Dalbec is hitting over .300 this month, is on a nice little stretch where he is hitting .500 over his last 18 AB’s and has driven in 8 runs in his last two games. He’s finally starting to look like the player who came up last September. Dalbec isn’t going anywhere. We still seem to forget he is learning at the ML level.
As for Shaw, we already have a left handed hitting First Baseman who can’t hit in Cordero and eventually Schwarber is expected to see some time there so Shaw is not needed. I doubt he plays again this season and will either search for opportunities in the NPB/KBO or have to settle on a minor league contract next winter
Least surprising move of the year for the Crew. The Vogelbach situation comes up in a few days, and that is less cut and dried. I expect that he will be DFA’d too, but that’s a bigger question.
Huh. I said he’d be DFA’d by June. Guess the injury bought him another two months. Either way, terrible signing.
I wouldn’t go that far. He looked decent in spring and for a few weeks into the season. After Turner said no thanks there wasn’t much left for the Brewers. It was a shot that just didn’t work out. Not exactly a huge financial gamble on their part. Now if you want to talk about a terrible signing there’s someone else that may fall into that category.
Yes. It would have been nice for the author to post splits or how Shaw started out well and then fell off. Was the fall off due to injury? Either way, MofDDC had a nice two year run in MKE and then a nice start to the beginning of this season. Wish him well. Sorry it didn’t work out better.
You wanna talk splits? He hasn’t hit since 2018. He basically had a decent 10 days to start the season.
JBJ was an awful signing.
Wish him the best. Things started to go down hill for him when he moved to second after rge Brewers traded for Moose. He wasn’t very happy about that and never really shook that. Both him and Schoop were able to adjust. That being said you can also say that he made the rebuild about 2 years shorter then what it was . If he hadn’t helped with that then would we have ever gotten Yellich?
Actually, he started to decline in ’18, although he still put reasonable #’s for the season. Then in ’19, he imploded. Prior to the Moose trade his OBS was under .600. It was a complete mental collapse like I’ve never seen watching 45 years of baseball.
Speaking of Yellich, as Brewer fans, what point do we start to “really” worry about him? We can talk about his balky back, or the Covid season all we want, but the fact is he hasn’t shown he can still hit after he fractured his knee. His slugging is especially concerning.
He’s still young enough that I hope he can figure it out. They really don’t have much of a choice but to give him time. They simply will not be able to move that contract.
In regards to Yelich, start to worry now Brew fans. While they are certainly doing very well right now (that pitching staff is no joke and this team can do some damage in the playoffs), Yelich has not been good for awhile now. Call it the knee, the back, or Covid, whatever it is, his decline looks like it’s already begun, and that contract ain’t going anywhere……
The thing is it isn’t a “decline” as much as he’s fallen off a cliff. That only happens with injury. My concern as a Brewer fan is, does he ever get it back to justify the deal (which, at the time, was a steal)?
I get what your saying on Yellich but watching him lately he is definitely smaller especially in upper body now I’m not saying he uses steroids at all cause I don’t think that one bit but I believe the back issue has taken a toll on his body a lot and now he is doing everything to catch back up physically. Very hard to do during season may even be spinning his wheels this year. Brewer fans are going to just be happy what we get and hope he recuperate during off-season
@stubby I have noticed this as well. I think the injuries and covid did a number on him. I think he is trying to get back in the swing of things but it took too much out of him. Everyone thinks that contract is terrible but in reality, it really is not as bad as people make it out to be. Glad you see this as well.
As a Brewer fan(born and now live in Milwaukee) I have faith that Yelich will be back to normal next season. Like someone stated, it is hard this late in the season to go into a hard training regiment like Yelich needs after Covid 19 and his ailments have caused. He also has shown a hard work ethic and is not some bum out looking for glamor. I expect a bounce back to respectable numbers before us calling him a albatross.
As for Travis Shaw, good luck where ever you land.
And speaking of Yelich, the most home runs he hit in Miami was 21 then after a trade to Milwaukee he hit 36,44 and if 2020 was a full season he would’ve had between 30-35. We can blame covid and we can blame a bad knee. Or we can wonder if the absence of a retired former teammate who might know how to get around the rules has something to do with it. Paging Mr Braun Paging Mr Braun
Are you seriously going there? SMH.
Everyone said he’d hit more cuz Miller Park/AFF is a band box. Plus, that’s really when EVERYBODY started caring less about everything except launch angle and hitting the long ball.
His decline, if you want to call it that, started once he signed the new deal, and after he wrecked his knee on a foul tip. And he still keeps in contact with Braun, so why would it matter that he’s not with the team? Did Yelich lose the burner phone number of the dealer? Seems like a silly, and unlikely (borderline stupid) scenario.
This made me chuckle a little bit because who really knows….
Now the Brewers need to just get Urias in the lineup more instead of trying to supplant him. Escobar and Tellez taking away all his AB’s.
But not suffering from his bad throws to 1B.
What are the odds that the Mets are interested in Travis Shaw?
Wouldn’t hate the Red Sox taking a flier on him with a minor league deal. It would give that Dalbec/Schwarber/Franchy 1B tandem some cover (and I’d sure rather watch Shaw than Franchy, even with his struggles the last few seasons).
Yelich scenario may be unlikely and possibly even stupid but isn’t it something that makes you think “maybe”? Think what you want and he’s still young but look at the Pre-Braun era the Braun era and Post-Braun era and draw your own conclusion
KBO next year for sure