They also have Jon Berti as additional mediocre veteran depth at 3B. Not that impressive but with Turner, they do have some fallback options. Better than Madrigal at least.
Regardless, Shaw is rated #19 in MLB’s top 100 and #13 recently by FanGraphs. At some point, it doesn’t make sense to give a free agent 3B $40 million a year when you have a guy like that.
Would you hold the Sox to these same expectations when and if they are good again? Because they wouldn’t sign Bregman either if they were in the same situation as the Cubs with Shaw waiting in the wings.