Matt Shaw has been on the shelf since June 29 with a left-hand sprain he picked up fouling a pitch off himself against the Brewers. It was supposed to be a quick fix. Instead it's turned into the single most annoying subplot of the Cubs' deadline week.
MLB Trade Rumors broke the news that Shaw's injury will carry him past the Aug. 3 deadline.
Manager Craig Counsell told reporters Shaw won't be activated before the deadline hits, and the timing could not be worse for a front office that had reportedly floated him as a trade piece for starting pitching help. Imaging apparently shows real healing, but the lingering inflammation is still messing with his swing, which is the kind of vague-but-real injury that makes rival GMs run the other way.
MLB Trade Rumors followed up hours later confirming the hand injury keeps Shaw parked on the IL through the deadline.
Before he got hurt, Shaw was hitting.246/.322/.415 with 4 homers across 56 games, solid but hardly a can't-miss centerpiece. That modest sample size was already going to make any Shaw trade a tough sell — now pair it with a hand that won't cooperate and you've basically got a guy nobody wants to buy blind.
The Cubs have been widely tied to the idea of flipping Shaw for rotation help, but an injured player who can't even take live at-bats for evaluation is a nonstarter in most front offices. Realistically, this takes him off the market entirely and turns him into a second-half reclamation project instead of a deadline chip.
So the Cubs head into the final stretch before Aug. 3 with one fewer asset to dangle, and Shaw heads into a rehab window with something to prove once his hand actually lets him swing normally again. Worth checking back on how he looks whenever he does get activated — that'll tell you a lot more about his trade value in the offseason than anything happening this week.