We Should Pay More Attention to Travis Shaw

Being an avid lover of both baseball and video games, I naturally like to participate in both from time to time, at the same time. In fact, San Diego Studio’s MLB THE SHOW 17 is quite possibly my favorite game at the moment considering how many hours I put into it. Anyways, the reason I bring this up is that the topic of this post (the under-the-radar talent that is Travis Shaw) was brought to my attention while watching a live-stream of my favorite MLB THE SHOW YouTuber. After hearing of the inevitable rise to power that Shaw should see within the next few weeks, I decided to look more into his stats and see just how plausible this claim was.

I assume that unless you are a Brewers fan, Shaw’s ability and stats could possibly be low on your radar, especially since he didn’t crack the National League’s All-Star lineup for 2017. But after taking a close look at his stats, maybe he should have. At the time of writing this article, Shaw is hitting .296 with 18 dingers and 61 RBI. This is impressive when you compare his stats to the rest of the N.L. All-Star starting lineup that collectively averaged a .320 average, 16 home runs (2 fewer than Shaw) and 55 RBI (5 fewer than Shaw). Then, we can take it a step further and compare him directly to the lineup’s starting third baseman (Shaw’s position), Nolan Arenado, who is hitting .298 with 15 homers and 63 RBI.

At first sight, it seems as if these two are on par with one another, with a slight advantage given to Arenado in the average and RBI department. This, however, is not the case when taking into consideration the advanced stats. Shaw pulls away from Arenado in ISO, weighted On Base Average (wOBA), and weighted Runs Created Plus (wRC+), averaging .268, .386, and 135 in each stat, respectively. These stats are known to tell more of the “story” of the player, giving more details as to what is going on. Shaw is hitting for more power, creating more runs, and overall is a bigger asset to his team than many other players in their respective situations that were graced with All-Star status.

I, of course, am not saying that Arenado or any other player should not have been awarded All-Star status because they are all amazing ball players with enormous talent. Really, the only point that I am trying to get across is that, based on stats, Shaw should have most definitely been a part of the current National League All-Star group. And as for the rest of the season, the future is very bright for Shaw, especially considering that he is now a sleeper candidate for National League’s Most Valuable Player, according to ESPN.

*Side note* This is my first post in the FanGraphs community! And while I am very excited, I at the same time want to be sure to improve with each and every post and write about things that people want to hear. If you, the readers, do not have anything to say about the content of the articles but do have some constructive criticisms please feel free to leave a comment! Have a good one!