Big changes were in store for 1994. After 25 seasons of playing with each league organized into East and West divisions, the leagues were re-organized. Now both leagues would have an East, Central, and West division. Whereas the divisions had originally featured six teams each (increased to seven in the AL in 1977 and in the NL in 1993), the East and Central divisions would each feature five teams, while the West would have four. In addition, there would now be an extra round of postseason play. The best of the division winners would now meet the top second-place, or "wild card" team in one best-of-five Division Series, while the other two division winners met in another. The winners of the Division Series would meet each other in the League Championship Series. The Cubs were placed in the NL Central with the Reds, Astros, Pirates, and Cardinals.
The Cubs came into 1994 with a new manager, but few substantial changes on the field. Tom Trebelhorn had had some success as the Milwaukee Brewers' skipper from 1986 through 1991, finishing over .500 in five out of his six full seasons there. Despite Jim Lefebvre's accomplishment in leading the Cubs to only their third winning season since 1972, he was ousted and Trebelhorn installed in his place before the 1994 season. Cubs' brass felt that they needed a tougher manager.
For the second year in a row, the Cubs lost their team leader in pitching wins, named Greg, to free agency. The difference was that failing to pay the cost to retain Greg Hibbard turned out to be a good decision. Hibbard went to the Seattle Mariners, threw 81 innings in 1994, was knocked around to the tune of a 6.69 ERA, and never pitched again.
Chicago would have to fill the gap with young pitchers. The club picked up Willie Banks in a minor deal with the Twins. The second-best player named "Banks" ever to play for the Cubs (no relation), Willie Banks was a right-handed starter who had thrown 171 innings with a decent (for the Metrodome) 4.04 ERA in 1993. Steve Trachsel, a 1991 draft pick out of Cal State-Long Beach, was also in the mix, as was Kevin Foster, an Evanston, IL native who had come over from the Phillies in a very minor trade. And then there was right-handed swingman Anthony Young, acquired in a trade with the Mets. Young was famous for all the wrong reasons, suffering a brutal 27-game losing streak in 1992 and 1993 that broke an 82 year-old MLB record (and is still the record as of 2020). Young, surely one of the most unlucky pitchers in all of baseball history, left New York after three seasons with a 5-35 record despite an ERA that was just a smidgen worse than league-average. His streak had ended on July 28, 1993, so at least he was not carrying that particular baggage to Chicago.
There were few changes in the lineup. Shawon Dunston, who had played 900 games for the Cubs at shortstop between 1985 and 1991, was back after missing almost all of 1992 and 1993 with a herniated disc in his back (in the 25 games he did play during those seasons, he hit .325). There were no major acquisitions for the staring lineup; the Cubs could only hope that Ryne Sandberg would find his power again after an injury-shortened 1993 and that the breakout seasons of Sammy Sosa and Rick Wilkins were not flukes.
1994 Opening Day Lineup
Rhodes, cf
Sandberg, 2b
Grace, 1b
May, lf
Sosa, rf
Wilkins, c
Buchele, 3b
Dunston, ss
Morgan, p
Karl "Tuffy" Rhodes was a 25 year-old former outfield prospect for the Houston Astros. Showing little in 92 games there, spread out between 1990 and 1993, he was granted free agency, signed by the Kansas City Royals to a minor-league contract and picked up by the Cubs in a trade deadline deal in 1993. In 15 games with the 1993 Cubs, he hit .288 and was the Cubs' opening-day centerfielder in 1994, mainly because the northsiders had few options. Batting leadoff against the Mets' Dwight Gooden, who had always been rough on the Cubs, Rhodes worked the count full and then hit Gooden's sixth pitch for a roundtripper to give Chicago a 1-0 lead. In the third, with the Cubs trailing 2-1, Rhodes came up with two out and no one on and deposited a Gooden pitch into the leftfield bleachers to tie the game. Rhodes led off the bottom of the fifth with the Cubs trailing 9-5 and smashed a Gooden offering out of the yard to bring the club within three runs.
It was a stunning performance by a completely unheralded player, coming at the expense a pitcher who had enjoyed a decade of stardom. Rhodes became only the second player to go deep three times on opening day, joining the Blue Jays' George Bell, a far more notable power hitter. Unfortunately, the fact that the Cubs lost the game 12-8 was more indicative of the type of season it would be than were Rhodes' heroics.
The Friendly Confines would turn out to be not so friendly in 1994. The Cubs were swept at Wrigley by the Mets in their first series of the year before a 3-2 road trip left them with a not-all-that-bad 3-5 record on the morning of April 15. They were shellacked at Wrigley by the Braves 15-9 on that date and proceeded to lose their next four games to complete an 0-5 homestand. They were 6-14 entering their next home game on April 29. They lost four more games in Chicago before finally breaking the string on May 4, with a 5-2 victory over the Reds, leaving them with a 1-12 record at home. At 7-18 and 10 1/2 games out of the division lead, their season was all but over after just a month.
The pitching staff was in shambles. Both of the Cubs' veteran starters were completely ineffective. Mike Morgan started the opener against the Mets and was hit hard. By the end of the month, he was 0-3 with a 5.85 ERA. Jose Guzman was 0-2 with a 16.43 (!) ERA when he was shut down after his April 10 start with a flareup of his shoulder problems. He was reactivated in May, won two starts (allowing three runs in six innings in each), then was shut down a second time. Though he attempted to rehab, he never pitched in the majors again.
The Cubs were a dismal 11-24 by mid-May, but, amazingly, put together an eight-game wining streak which seemed to offer hope. Young started the streak with a 4-2 victory over San Diego in Chicago and Guzman contributed his last two major-league victories. Highlights included two 11-inning victories over the Giants on May 20 and 22; the first won by Rick Wilkins with a two-out RBI double, the second by Derrick May's homer leading off the bottom of the 11th. At the end of the streak, the Cubs were incredibly only five games below .500 at 19-24 and only 6.5 games out of the division lead, after having trailed by 12 games just two weeks previously. The Cubs lost two, then won their next four, the last one coming on a one-hit shutout of the Phillies, with Banks pitching the first eight innings and Myers finishing up. They were now only four games under .500 and only five out in the division. It could have been the start of something special.
But it was not to be. A ten-game losing streak from May 31 to June 10 effectively ended their season. Their pitching seemed to be slightly better, but the hitters went into a collective slump, averaging less than three runs per game during the streak. The worst moment of the season, though, came on May 13, two days after the end of the streak. Ryne Sandberg, the Cubs' best player for a decade and one of the greatest in the storied history of the franchise, announced his retirement.
Sandberg had gotten off to a good start in 1994, a rarity for him, but a horrendous slump dropped his average to .238 by June 10, with only 5 home runs. Sandberg's stated reason for retiring was that he wanted to spend more time with his children, but his wife filed for divorce soon thereafter, so it's likely there were other family issues as well. He was having a disappointing seasons for a team that was going nowhere and, although he said nothing at the time, was reportedly not happy about the direction in which the front office was taking the team. The announcement came as a shock not only to Cubs fans, but to the entire MLB community. The Cubs' franchise player was gone, with no one around to replace him in that role.
Sandberg's retirement, shocking though it was, was hardly the biggest story in baseball in 1994. On August 12, with no collective bargaining agreement in place and the owners trying to push through a salary cap, the players felt they had no alternative but to strike. Unlike in 1981, the season would never resume, making 1994 the first year since 1904 that no World Series was played. The Cubs' 5-2 defeat at the hands of the Giants on August 11, their eighth loss in their last nine games, turned out to be their last game of a mercifully short season. They finished 49-64, a winning percentage of .434, their worst since the previous strike-shortened season in 1981. The same percentage would have translated to a 70-92 record over a full 162-game schedule. Their record at Wrigley was an unbelievably dismal 20-39, which more than offset a winning record in road games. Despite playing only 113 games, they still managed to finish 17 games out of first place.
In some bad seasons, Cubs fans at least had individual performances to hang on to as points of pride, but there was little of that sort of consolation in 1994. Wilkins' 1993 performance did turn out to be a fluke. He hit just .227 in '94 with seven home runs. He played until 2001 for seven other teams and had one season of 14 homers, but no others in double figures. After 1993, his highest average in anything resembling a full seasons was .243. His 1994 performance remains a fascinating aberration; a Hall of Fame quality season in the midst of an otherwise utterly ordinary career.
The other breakthrough player from 1993, Sammy Sosa, was not to suffer the same fate. Sosa hit 25 home runs in the short seasons and drove in 70. He also increased his battering average by 39 points, hitting an even .300. There was little doubt he had replaced Sandberg as the team's best player. The other competitor for the title, Mark Grace, hit .298, only his third finish below .300 in his seven-season career. He would not post another sub-.300 average for the rest of the decade. Dunston hit surprisingly well in his return as the regular shortstop, finishing at .278 with 11 home runs in 88 games played. Glenallen Hill did well, at .292 and 10 roundtrippers. Rhodes ended up at .234 with eight homers. The Cubs finished eleventh out of fourteen teams in runs scored.
The Cub's leader in pitching wins was Trachsel at 9-7, with a 3.21 ERA. He finished fourth in Rookie of the Year voting. Young (3.92 in 115 innings) and Foster (2.89 in 81 innings) both pitched OK, but Banks did not quite come up to that level, with a 5.40 ERA in 138 frames, leading to an 8-12 record. Morgan never improved on his awful start in the opener, finishing 2-10 with 6.69 ERA. Myers saved 21 games with an OK 3.79 ERA. The club finished tenth in ERA with a 4.47 team mark.
1994 Cubs Batting Leaders: R - Sammy Sosa, 59; H - Sosa, 128; HR - Sosa, 25; RBI - Sosa, 70; BA - Sosa, .300; OBP - Grace, .370; SP - Sosa, .545
1994 Cubs Pitching Leaders: G - Jose Bautista, 58; IP - Steve Trachsel, 146; W - Trachsel, 9; SO - Trachsel, 108; ERA - Trachsel, 3.21; SV - Myers, 21
Sunday, May 24, 2020
Friday, May 22, 2020
1993 - The One That Got Away
The only drawback to Greg Maddux's incredible year in 1992 was that it was the final year of his contract with the Cubs and would increase the amount it would take to re-sign him. Cubs fans were nervous as Maddux hit free agency in the offseason. Unfortunately, their worst fears were realized when Maddux agreed to a huge contract with the Atlanta Braves that was actually just slightly more than what the Cubs were offering (and significantly less than what the New York Yankees offered). Cubs general manager Larry Himes seemed to lose interest after Maddux did not accept the Cubs' first offer. Instead of negotiating with Maddux, Himes went out and signed free-agent pitchers Jose Guzman and Randy Myers while Maddux was still available, supposedly leaving no money to re-sign Maddux.[1]
It was a disaster, much worse than the infamous Brock-for-Broglio trade with the Cardinals in 1964. Maddux built on his superior 1992 season, establishing a run of dominance that would make him a no-doubt Hall of Famer. He pitched for Atlanta for 11 seasons, never winning fewer than 16 games, pitching fewer than 200 innings only once (a year in which he threw 199.1) and winning four ERA titles, with figures as low as 1.56. Probably his best year was 1995 when he was 19-2 with a 1.63 ERA and led the Braves to their first World Series championship in Atlanta. He also pitched for two other pennant winners, in 1996 and 1999. The 1992 NL Cy Young Award turned out to be the first in an unprecedented string of four consecutive Cy Young Awards. In all Maddux had a record of 194-88 with an ERA of 2.63 in over 2500 innings pitched during his time in Atlanta.
Losing Maddux hurt at the time, although the magnitude of the damage would only be seen in hindsight. Cubs fans could only hope that the new pitchers would fill some of the gap. Jose Guzman was a 29 year old righthanded starter who after a couple of fair seasons with the Rangers in the late eighties, missed all of 1989 and 1990 with shoulder problems. He returned from surgery in 1991 to finish at 13-7 with a 3.08 ERA, winning Comback Player of the Year honors. The next year he was at 3.66 in 224 innings, yielding a record of 16-11 and prompting Himes to sign him to a four-year contract.
Myers was a lefthanded closer and charter member of the "Nasty Boys," along with Rob Dibble and Norm Charlton, a trio of hard-throwing relievers who had helped the Reds to a World Series Championship in 1990. Myers was coming off a one-year tenure in San Diego, during which he saved 38 games (though with a high ERA) and seemed a good bet to plug the gaping hole at the back of the Cubs' bullpen. The team hadn't had a pitcher save more than 17 games since Mitch Williams in 1989.
Besides Maddux, another long-time Cub left as a free agent after the 1992 season. Andre Dawson had come to the Cubs partly because the pain in his knees led him to desire to play his home games on a field with natural grass. Now, with six more seasons behind him, he needed more rest and an American League team, where he could DH some of the time, seemed the best fit. He signed a free-agent contract with the Boston Red Sox. Dawson would play two years in Boston and two more back in his hometown of Miami before retiring. When Dawson was elected to the Hall of Fame in 2010, he wanted to be portrayed on his plaque wearing a Cubs cap, but ended up being pictured as an Expo, for whom, in truth, he had had his best years. Still, his Cubs tenure was memorable and he remains one of the best rightfielders in team history. The way in which he came to the team, as well as his memorable 1987 season, will always be a part of Cubs lore.
Besides Myers and Guzman, other significant offseason acquisitions for the Cubs included Candy Maldonado, Willie Wilson, and Greg Hibbard. Maldonado was a 32 year-old corner outfielder, who had seasons of 22, 20, 20, and 18 home runs on his resume. The Cubs hoped that he could provide some much needed power. Wilson was a leftfielder who had been a sensation after coming up with the Royals in the late 1970s, stealing 83 bases in 1979 and 79 in 1980, helping lead Kansas City to its first AL pennant. After hitting .217 in his rookie year, Wilson was over .300 each of the next four years, culminating in a .332 average and an AL batting title in 1982. He faded after that, however, and, by the time he came to Chicago, was just another player.
After a good year in 1990 and so-so years in 1991 and 1992, the White Sox's Greg Hibbard was selected in the expansion draft by the brand-new Florida Marlins, who immediately flipped him to the Cubs for disappointing third baseman Gary Scott and a young infielder named Alex Arias. Hibbard was a lefthanded starter who would compete for a rotation spot in 1993.
1993 Opening Day Lineup
Wilson, cf
Sanchez, ss
Grace, 1b
Maldonado, lf
Sosa, rf
Buechele, 3b
Wilkins, c
Vizcaino, 2b
Morgan, p
Greg Maddux started the opener in Chicago. Unfortunately, he was, of course, pitching for the Braves. Equally unfortunately, the Cubs were missing their best remaining player. Ryne Sandberg had broken his hand in spring training and would not play until the last day of April. With only Mark Grace in the lineup from the Sandberg-Maddux-Dawson-Grace quartet that had been the heart of the team since 1988, the result was a 1-0 loss, with Maddux giving up just 5 hits in 8 1/3 innings.
The Cubs managed to reverse the score the next day with Jose Guzman making his first start as a northsider and going the distance in dramatic fashion. No Cubs pitcher had thrown a no-hitter since Milt Pappas in 1972, but Guzman went into the ninth inning with a chance to end that streak. He retired Mark Lemke on a groundout to first and Francisco Cabrera on a pop to third to come within one out. However, Otis Nixon poked a single into leftfield to break up Guzman's bid for immortality. After balking the speedy Nixon to second to jeopardize the Cubs' 1-0 lead, Guzman got Jeff Blauser (a major Cubs' nemesis) to pop to shortstop to complete the shutout. It was the most impressive mound debut by a new acquisition since 1960, when Don Cardwell threw a no-hitter in his first Cubs' start after coming over via a midseason trade with the Phillies.
Despite the loss of Sandberg, the Cubs managed to hang tough, going 10-11 without their star second baseman and winning his first game back to finish April at .500. It was another year of mediocrity; no long losing streaks dashed their hopes for a winning season, but no long winning streaks gave any promise of contention. The team went 13-12 in May, 14-16 in June, and 15-12 in July. A 12-18 August seemed to dash any hopes of finishing over .500. They were 18 games behind the Phillies, in fourth place in the NL East. Of the new acquisitions, Myers was all they could have hoped for, with 37 saves, nearly equaling his output for the entire 1992 season. Hibbard was just OK at 10-11 with a 3.81 ERA and Guzman, after his great start, was 11-9, with a 4.15 ERA. Maldonado was already gone by the end of the month, traded to Cleveland for reserve outfielder Glenallen Hill after a tremendously disappointing .186/.260/.286 tenure in Chicago, with three home runs.
Amazingly, the Cubs reversed recent trends with a strong finishing kick, winning 20 of their final 30 games to finish with an 84-78 record. Hibbard was 5-0 during the stretch to finish at 15-11, leading the team in wins. Myers saved an outrageous 16 games, finishing with a league-leading total of 53, which remains the club record. Hill, installed as the new leftfielder, hit .345 with 10 round-trippers in only 87 at-bats after coming over on August 19 in the trade for Maldonado.
Sandberg hit .309 for the season after his late start, but the hand injury seemed to rob him of his power as he hit only nine home runs, his lowest total in a decade. He didn't play after September 13 because of a dislocated finger and finished with only 117 games played. For the first time since 1988, he failed to score at least 100 runs in a season. Mark Grace helped pick up some of the slack by raising his average to .325 and driving in 98 runs, which would remain his career high. The aging Wilson contributed little with a .258/.301/.348 slash line and 7 steals. The 17 games he played for the Cubs the following season would be his last in the majors.
Guzman and Mike Morgan, who were expected to be rotation anchors in 1993 both disappointed. Guzman pitched 191 innings, but his ERA was poor, at 4.34, which led to a pedestrian 12-10 record. Morgan came back down to Earth after a great 1992, finishing at 4.03 in 208 innings and a 10-15 record. There were no other viable starters and the bullpen, outside of Myers and swingman Jose Bautista (2.82 ERA in 111 innings), was weak. The staff sorely missed Maddux and finished 10th in the league in ERA.
The two biggest stories, though were the Cubs' rightfielder and catcher. Sammy Sosa was healthy all year, and proved to be the player the Cubs hoped he would be. He finished with 33 home runs and 36 stolen bases, becoming the team's first 30-30 player and scoring 92 runs. At age 24, Sosa seemed set to hold down the rightfield position for years to come.
While Sosa's performance was somewhat anticipated based on the potential the Cubs' brain trust thought they saw in him, catcher Rick Wilkins' performance came as a shock, albeit a pleasant one. Drafted out of Florida College in Jacksonville in 1986, Wilkins reached the majors in 1991 and was thrown into the Cubs' catching mix along with Hector Villanueva and future Yankees manager Joe Girardi. He showed no signs of become a star, hitting .222 with six home runs in 1991 and .270 with eight homers in 1992. He won the regular job in 1993, but was nothing special over the first two months; his average stood at .237 with 8 roundtrippers at the end of May. He exploded in June, hitting an eye-popping .414 to raise his overall average to .312 and matching his homer output of the first two months with 8. He continued to hit for power, finishing with 30 circuit blasts, though his batting average dropped to .289 in mid-September. But another torrid stretch to end the season, 17 hits and a .447(!) average over his last 12 games, left his final average at .303. He became, and remains, the only Cubs catcher to go deep 30 times in a season other than Hall-of-Famer Gabby Hartnett, who turned the trick in 1930.
The 1993 season marked the first time since 1972 that the Cubs finished over .500 without winning a division title. Cub fans could only hope that it was the start of another upswing.
1993 Cubs Batting Leaders: R - Sammy Sosa, 92; H - Mark Grace, 193; HR - Sosa, 33; RBI - Grace, 98; BA - Grace, .325; OBP - Grace, .393; SP - Rick Wilkins, .561*
1993 Cubs Pitching Leaders: G - Randy Myers, 73; IP - Mike Morgan, 208; W - Greg Hibbard, 15; SO - Jose Guzman, 163; ERA - Hibbard, 3.96; SV - Myers, 53
*Wilkins just missed qualifying for the batting title, finishing 2 plate appearances short; Sosa's .485 was the best figure for a Cub who did qualify.
[1] Stew Thornley, "Greg Maddux," Society for American Baseball Research, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/d13d4022, accessed 16 May 2020
It was a disaster, much worse than the infamous Brock-for-Broglio trade with the Cardinals in 1964. Maddux built on his superior 1992 season, establishing a run of dominance that would make him a no-doubt Hall of Famer. He pitched for Atlanta for 11 seasons, never winning fewer than 16 games, pitching fewer than 200 innings only once (a year in which he threw 199.1) and winning four ERA titles, with figures as low as 1.56. Probably his best year was 1995 when he was 19-2 with a 1.63 ERA and led the Braves to their first World Series championship in Atlanta. He also pitched for two other pennant winners, in 1996 and 1999. The 1992 NL Cy Young Award turned out to be the first in an unprecedented string of four consecutive Cy Young Awards. In all Maddux had a record of 194-88 with an ERA of 2.63 in over 2500 innings pitched during his time in Atlanta.
Losing Maddux hurt at the time, although the magnitude of the damage would only be seen in hindsight. Cubs fans could only hope that the new pitchers would fill some of the gap. Jose Guzman was a 29 year old righthanded starter who after a couple of fair seasons with the Rangers in the late eighties, missed all of 1989 and 1990 with shoulder problems. He returned from surgery in 1991 to finish at 13-7 with a 3.08 ERA, winning Comback Player of the Year honors. The next year he was at 3.66 in 224 innings, yielding a record of 16-11 and prompting Himes to sign him to a four-year contract.
Myers was a lefthanded closer and charter member of the "Nasty Boys," along with Rob Dibble and Norm Charlton, a trio of hard-throwing relievers who had helped the Reds to a World Series Championship in 1990. Myers was coming off a one-year tenure in San Diego, during which he saved 38 games (though with a high ERA) and seemed a good bet to plug the gaping hole at the back of the Cubs' bullpen. The team hadn't had a pitcher save more than 17 games since Mitch Williams in 1989.
Besides Maddux, another long-time Cub left as a free agent after the 1992 season. Andre Dawson had come to the Cubs partly because the pain in his knees led him to desire to play his home games on a field with natural grass. Now, with six more seasons behind him, he needed more rest and an American League team, where he could DH some of the time, seemed the best fit. He signed a free-agent contract with the Boston Red Sox. Dawson would play two years in Boston and two more back in his hometown of Miami before retiring. When Dawson was elected to the Hall of Fame in 2010, he wanted to be portrayed on his plaque wearing a Cubs cap, but ended up being pictured as an Expo, for whom, in truth, he had had his best years. Still, his Cubs tenure was memorable and he remains one of the best rightfielders in team history. The way in which he came to the team, as well as his memorable 1987 season, will always be a part of Cubs lore.
Besides Myers and Guzman, other significant offseason acquisitions for the Cubs included Candy Maldonado, Willie Wilson, and Greg Hibbard. Maldonado was a 32 year-old corner outfielder, who had seasons of 22, 20, 20, and 18 home runs on his resume. The Cubs hoped that he could provide some much needed power. Wilson was a leftfielder who had been a sensation after coming up with the Royals in the late 1970s, stealing 83 bases in 1979 and 79 in 1980, helping lead Kansas City to its first AL pennant. After hitting .217 in his rookie year, Wilson was over .300 each of the next four years, culminating in a .332 average and an AL batting title in 1982. He faded after that, however, and, by the time he came to Chicago, was just another player.
After a good year in 1990 and so-so years in 1991 and 1992, the White Sox's Greg Hibbard was selected in the expansion draft by the brand-new Florida Marlins, who immediately flipped him to the Cubs for disappointing third baseman Gary Scott and a young infielder named Alex Arias. Hibbard was a lefthanded starter who would compete for a rotation spot in 1993.
1993 Opening Day Lineup
Wilson, cf
Sanchez, ss
Grace, 1b
Maldonado, lf
Sosa, rf
Buechele, 3b
Wilkins, c
Vizcaino, 2b
Morgan, p
Greg Maddux started the opener in Chicago. Unfortunately, he was, of course, pitching for the Braves. Equally unfortunately, the Cubs were missing their best remaining player. Ryne Sandberg had broken his hand in spring training and would not play until the last day of April. With only Mark Grace in the lineup from the Sandberg-Maddux-Dawson-Grace quartet that had been the heart of the team since 1988, the result was a 1-0 loss, with Maddux giving up just 5 hits in 8 1/3 innings.
The Cubs managed to reverse the score the next day with Jose Guzman making his first start as a northsider and going the distance in dramatic fashion. No Cubs pitcher had thrown a no-hitter since Milt Pappas in 1972, but Guzman went into the ninth inning with a chance to end that streak. He retired Mark Lemke on a groundout to first and Francisco Cabrera on a pop to third to come within one out. However, Otis Nixon poked a single into leftfield to break up Guzman's bid for immortality. After balking the speedy Nixon to second to jeopardize the Cubs' 1-0 lead, Guzman got Jeff Blauser (a major Cubs' nemesis) to pop to shortstop to complete the shutout. It was the most impressive mound debut by a new acquisition since 1960, when Don Cardwell threw a no-hitter in his first Cubs' start after coming over via a midseason trade with the Phillies.
Despite the loss of Sandberg, the Cubs managed to hang tough, going 10-11 without their star second baseman and winning his first game back to finish April at .500. It was another year of mediocrity; no long losing streaks dashed their hopes for a winning season, but no long winning streaks gave any promise of contention. The team went 13-12 in May, 14-16 in June, and 15-12 in July. A 12-18 August seemed to dash any hopes of finishing over .500. They were 18 games behind the Phillies, in fourth place in the NL East. Of the new acquisitions, Myers was all they could have hoped for, with 37 saves, nearly equaling his output for the entire 1992 season. Hibbard was just OK at 10-11 with a 3.81 ERA and Guzman, after his great start, was 11-9, with a 4.15 ERA. Maldonado was already gone by the end of the month, traded to Cleveland for reserve outfielder Glenallen Hill after a tremendously disappointing .186/.260/.286 tenure in Chicago, with three home runs.
Amazingly, the Cubs reversed recent trends with a strong finishing kick, winning 20 of their final 30 games to finish with an 84-78 record. Hibbard was 5-0 during the stretch to finish at 15-11, leading the team in wins. Myers saved an outrageous 16 games, finishing with a league-leading total of 53, which remains the club record. Hill, installed as the new leftfielder, hit .345 with 10 round-trippers in only 87 at-bats after coming over on August 19 in the trade for Maldonado.
Sandberg hit .309 for the season after his late start, but the hand injury seemed to rob him of his power as he hit only nine home runs, his lowest total in a decade. He didn't play after September 13 because of a dislocated finger and finished with only 117 games played. For the first time since 1988, he failed to score at least 100 runs in a season. Mark Grace helped pick up some of the slack by raising his average to .325 and driving in 98 runs, which would remain his career high. The aging Wilson contributed little with a .258/.301/.348 slash line and 7 steals. The 17 games he played for the Cubs the following season would be his last in the majors.
Guzman and Mike Morgan, who were expected to be rotation anchors in 1993 both disappointed. Guzman pitched 191 innings, but his ERA was poor, at 4.34, which led to a pedestrian 12-10 record. Morgan came back down to Earth after a great 1992, finishing at 4.03 in 208 innings and a 10-15 record. There were no other viable starters and the bullpen, outside of Myers and swingman Jose Bautista (2.82 ERA in 111 innings), was weak. The staff sorely missed Maddux and finished 10th in the league in ERA.
The two biggest stories, though were the Cubs' rightfielder and catcher. Sammy Sosa was healthy all year, and proved to be the player the Cubs hoped he would be. He finished with 33 home runs and 36 stolen bases, becoming the team's first 30-30 player and scoring 92 runs. At age 24, Sosa seemed set to hold down the rightfield position for years to come.
While Sosa's performance was somewhat anticipated based on the potential the Cubs' brain trust thought they saw in him, catcher Rick Wilkins' performance came as a shock, albeit a pleasant one. Drafted out of Florida College in Jacksonville in 1986, Wilkins reached the majors in 1991 and was thrown into the Cubs' catching mix along with Hector Villanueva and future Yankees manager Joe Girardi. He showed no signs of become a star, hitting .222 with six home runs in 1991 and .270 with eight homers in 1992. He won the regular job in 1993, but was nothing special over the first two months; his average stood at .237 with 8 roundtrippers at the end of May. He exploded in June, hitting an eye-popping .414 to raise his overall average to .312 and matching his homer output of the first two months with 8. He continued to hit for power, finishing with 30 circuit blasts, though his batting average dropped to .289 in mid-September. But another torrid stretch to end the season, 17 hits and a .447(!) average over his last 12 games, left his final average at .303. He became, and remains, the only Cubs catcher to go deep 30 times in a season other than Hall-of-Famer Gabby Hartnett, who turned the trick in 1930.
The 1993 season marked the first time since 1972 that the Cubs finished over .500 without winning a division title. Cub fans could only hope that it was the start of another upswing.
1993 Cubs Batting Leaders: R - Sammy Sosa, 92; H - Mark Grace, 193; HR - Sosa, 33; RBI - Grace, 98; BA - Grace, .325; OBP - Grace, .393; SP - Rick Wilkins, .561*
1993 Cubs Pitching Leaders: G - Randy Myers, 73; IP - Mike Morgan, 208; W - Greg Hibbard, 15; SO - Jose Guzman, 163; ERA - Hibbard, 3.96; SV - Myers, 53
*Wilkins just missed qualifying for the batting title, finishing 2 plate appearances short; Sosa's .485 was the best figure for a Cub who did qualify.
[1] Stew Thornley, "Greg Maddux," Society for American Baseball Research, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/d13d4022, accessed 16 May 2020
Saturday, May 16, 2020
1992 - The Frustration Continues
After another disappointing season in 1991, the Cubs didn't make wholesale changes, but did make some important moves. Jim Essian was not retained in the managerial position, which instead went to Jim Lefebvre. Lefebvre, a Dodgers infielder of the late 1960s and early 1970s, became Seattle's manager in 1989. In his third year there, he led the team to the first winning season in its history at 83-79, but was fired anyway.
Despite the free-agent failures of 1991, the Cubs signed another big-ticket free agent during the offseason. Mike Morgan was a journeyman right-handed starter who had debuted in the majors at age 18 in 1978. Landing with the Dodgers, his sixth team, he showed promise in 1989 as a swingman, posting a 2.53 ERA in 153 innings, more than two full runs lower than his career ERA coming into the season. In 1991, he blossomed into a star, with a 2.78 ERA in 236 innings and a 14-10 record. The Cubs took a chance that it was not a fluke and signed him.
The Cubs' best signing in the offseason was of a player they already had. Ryne Sandberg was in the last year of his three-year contract in 1992 and he announced he would not engage in negotiations after the start of spring training. Seeing Ryno in any major league uniform but the Cubs' was unthinkable, so the team negotiated a four-year extension that made their second baseman the highest-paid player in baseball history, at over $7 million per year.
The transaction with the most far-reaching implications, though no one knew it at the time, was conducted at the end of spring training. Cubs fans were wondering if George Bell could recapture his 1987 form in his second year at Wrigley, but they never got a chance to find out. On March 30, Bell was sent across town to the White Sox for middle reliever Ken Patterson and a young centerfielder named Sammy Sosa.
Sosa was signed out of the Dominican Republic by the Texas Rangers at the age of 16. He made his debut with the Rangers in June 1989, but was included in a blockbuster deal with the White Sox in July (Harold Baines was the Rangers' main acquisition). He showed promise in 1990, with 15 home runs and 32 steals in 153 games, bit hit just .233 with a horrendous .282 on-base percentage. He spent significant time in the minors in 1991, getting into 116 major league games with a .203 average. Still he was only 23 years old in spring 1992 and the Cubs were willing to take a chance that he would develop.
Sosa was part of a mini-youth movement conducted by the team. 37 year-old Andre Dawson and 32 year-old Ryne Sandberg weren't going anywhere, but several youngsters would see significant playing time in '92, including middle infielders Rey Sanchez and Jose Vizcaino, both 24 and outfielder Derrick May, the 23 year-old son of former Brewers outfielder Dave May.
1992 Opening Day Lineup
Dunston, ss
Sosa, cf
Sandberg, 2b
Dawson, rf
Grace, 1b
Villanueva, c
Salazar, lf
Scott, 3b
Maddux, p
The Cubs won the opener in Philadelphia behind Maddux, but the rest of April was a disaster, as the Cubs won just 7 of their 20 games during the month. Although they would rally to flirt with a winning record, they never contended. They lost to Philadelphia on April 21 to drop 5.5 games back of the division lead and never got closer than 5 games for the rest of the season.
Sosa started out slowly. Fans who remember only the muscle-bound "Slammin' Sammy" of the late '90's and early 2000's may find it hard to imagine, but Sosa, at this point, was a sleek, fast centerfielder, who usually batted leadoff or second and was known as "The Panther." However, at the end of May, he was hitting just .243 with 2 homers, although he did have 11 steals. On June 10, he seemed to break out with 2 home runs in a victory against the Cardinals. In his next game, on June 12, he was hit in the wrist by Montreal's Dennis Martinez and forced to go on the disabled list with a broken bone.
The Cubs were playing better after their rough start and evened their record at 38-38 on June 30. On July 11, they traded Danny Jackson, their big disappointment of 1991, to the Pittsburgh Pirates straight up for third baseman Steve Buchele, a glove man with decent power. The trade came near the end of a 2-10 stretch that dropped the club 8 games below .500 and 9.5 back in the division. Sosa returned on July 27 and responded with two 3-hit games in a row and an 11th inning game-winning home run in his third game to key a sweep of the Pirates. He had another 3-hit game on August 1 and by August 5, had his average up to .260. On August 6, though, he fouled a pitch off his ankle, breaking it. He was done for the season. Cubs fans would have to wait until 1993 to see if Sosa could fulfill his potential.
The Cubs got hot without Sosa in the lineup. When he went down for the second time, their record was just 51-55, but the northsiders went 16-8 for the rest of the month to enter September with a 67-63 record. Both Morgan and Maddux went 3-0 during that stretch. Morgan was proving to be as good as the Cubs had hoped. By the end of the month, he was 13-6 with a 2.38 ERA. Maddux, though, was even better. After throwing a complete game shutout against the Dodgers on August 31, he was 16-10 with a 2.13 ERA. He had as many strikeouts as hits allowed, 157 of each, and had given up only 61 walks in 224 innings.
Unfortunately, September was not a good month. The Cubs fell to 74-75 on September 20, but evened their record the next day, dealing a 10-1 shellacking to the Mets behind Maddux. They then proceeded to lose their next eight games, assuring themselves of their 17th losing season in a 20-year span. After taking two of three from the Expos at Wrigley in the concluding series of the year, they finished at 78-84. The team seemed to be drifting along just south of mediocrity. They had now won between 76 and 78 games in five out of their last six seasons, a streak broken only by their divisional championship year of 1989.
The only highlights of the last month of the season were provided by Maddux, who was 4-1 during the month, with his 20th win of the season coming via complete-game shutout against the Pirates on September 30. He became the first Cubs pitcher to win 20 since Rick Reuschel in 1977. For the 26-year old hurler it was an incredible year, which marked his arrival as not only a top-of-the-line starter, but a pitcher with Hall of Fame ability. Maddux's 20 wins led the league, as did his 268 innings pitched. He was third in strikeouts with 199. His microscopic 2.18 ERA was, somewhat amazingly, only third in the league, but he was first (retroactively) in adjusted ERA, a measure that takes into account the effect of each pitcher's home park. According to another retroactive stat, Baseball-Reference.com's Wins Above Replacement (rWAR), Maddux was not only the best pitcher, but the best player in all of MLB in 1992. It all added up to his first NL Cy Young Award.
The Cubs had two starters having great seasons in 1992. Morgan justified the Cubs' faith in him by finishing with a 2.55 ERA in 240 innings, resulting in a 16-8 record. The rest of the starters and the bullpen were just OK (Bob Scanlan led the team with only 14 saves), but the Maddux and Morgan combination helped the Cubs finish 5th in the league in ERA.
Whereas in 1991, a strong offense had been let down by a weak pitching staff, in 1992, a decent pitching staff was undermined by a weak offense, as the Cubs finished just 10th in the league in runs scored. The Cubs' trio of offensive stars did alright. Sandberg bolstered his Hall of Fame credentials with another fine year, hitting .304 with 100 runs scored and homering 26 times. Mark Grace hit .307 and 37-year old Andre Dawson led the team with 90 RBIs while homering 22 times and batting .277. As far as decent offensive performances, though, that was it. No one besides that trio drove in or scored even 50 runs and no one besides Sandberg and Dawson hit as many as 10 homers. With Maddux in the walk year of his contract in 1992 and Dawson and Sandberg on the wrong side of 30, the future seemed very uncertain.
1992 Cubs Batting Leaders: R - Ryne Sandberg, 100; H - Sandberg, 186; HR - Sandberg, 26; RBI - Dawson, 90; BA - Mark Grace, .307; OBP - Grace, .380; SP - Sandberg, .510
1992 Cubs Pitching Leaders: G - Chuck McElroy, 72; IP - Greg Maddux, 268; W - Maddux, 20; SO - Maddux, 199; ERA - Maddux, 2.18; SV - Bob Scanlan, 14
Despite the free-agent failures of 1991, the Cubs signed another big-ticket free agent during the offseason. Mike Morgan was a journeyman right-handed starter who had debuted in the majors at age 18 in 1978. Landing with the Dodgers, his sixth team, he showed promise in 1989 as a swingman, posting a 2.53 ERA in 153 innings, more than two full runs lower than his career ERA coming into the season. In 1991, he blossomed into a star, with a 2.78 ERA in 236 innings and a 14-10 record. The Cubs took a chance that it was not a fluke and signed him.
The Cubs' best signing in the offseason was of a player they already had. Ryne Sandberg was in the last year of his three-year contract in 1992 and he announced he would not engage in negotiations after the start of spring training. Seeing Ryno in any major league uniform but the Cubs' was unthinkable, so the team negotiated a four-year extension that made their second baseman the highest-paid player in baseball history, at over $7 million per year.
The transaction with the most far-reaching implications, though no one knew it at the time, was conducted at the end of spring training. Cubs fans were wondering if George Bell could recapture his 1987 form in his second year at Wrigley, but they never got a chance to find out. On March 30, Bell was sent across town to the White Sox for middle reliever Ken Patterson and a young centerfielder named Sammy Sosa.
Sosa was signed out of the Dominican Republic by the Texas Rangers at the age of 16. He made his debut with the Rangers in June 1989, but was included in a blockbuster deal with the White Sox in July (Harold Baines was the Rangers' main acquisition). He showed promise in 1990, with 15 home runs and 32 steals in 153 games, bit hit just .233 with a horrendous .282 on-base percentage. He spent significant time in the minors in 1991, getting into 116 major league games with a .203 average. Still he was only 23 years old in spring 1992 and the Cubs were willing to take a chance that he would develop.
Sosa was part of a mini-youth movement conducted by the team. 37 year-old Andre Dawson and 32 year-old Ryne Sandberg weren't going anywhere, but several youngsters would see significant playing time in '92, including middle infielders Rey Sanchez and Jose Vizcaino, both 24 and outfielder Derrick May, the 23 year-old son of former Brewers outfielder Dave May.
1992 Opening Day Lineup
Dunston, ss
Sosa, cf
Sandberg, 2b
Dawson, rf
Grace, 1b
Villanueva, c
Salazar, lf
Scott, 3b
Maddux, p
The Cubs won the opener in Philadelphia behind Maddux, but the rest of April was a disaster, as the Cubs won just 7 of their 20 games during the month. Although they would rally to flirt with a winning record, they never contended. They lost to Philadelphia on April 21 to drop 5.5 games back of the division lead and never got closer than 5 games for the rest of the season.
Sosa started out slowly. Fans who remember only the muscle-bound "Slammin' Sammy" of the late '90's and early 2000's may find it hard to imagine, but Sosa, at this point, was a sleek, fast centerfielder, who usually batted leadoff or second and was known as "The Panther." However, at the end of May, he was hitting just .243 with 2 homers, although he did have 11 steals. On June 10, he seemed to break out with 2 home runs in a victory against the Cardinals. In his next game, on June 12, he was hit in the wrist by Montreal's Dennis Martinez and forced to go on the disabled list with a broken bone.
The Cubs were playing better after their rough start and evened their record at 38-38 on June 30. On July 11, they traded Danny Jackson, their big disappointment of 1991, to the Pittsburgh Pirates straight up for third baseman Steve Buchele, a glove man with decent power. The trade came near the end of a 2-10 stretch that dropped the club 8 games below .500 and 9.5 back in the division. Sosa returned on July 27 and responded with two 3-hit games in a row and an 11th inning game-winning home run in his third game to key a sweep of the Pirates. He had another 3-hit game on August 1 and by August 5, had his average up to .260. On August 6, though, he fouled a pitch off his ankle, breaking it. He was done for the season. Cubs fans would have to wait until 1993 to see if Sosa could fulfill his potential.
The Cubs got hot without Sosa in the lineup. When he went down for the second time, their record was just 51-55, but the northsiders went 16-8 for the rest of the month to enter September with a 67-63 record. Both Morgan and Maddux went 3-0 during that stretch. Morgan was proving to be as good as the Cubs had hoped. By the end of the month, he was 13-6 with a 2.38 ERA. Maddux, though, was even better. After throwing a complete game shutout against the Dodgers on August 31, he was 16-10 with a 2.13 ERA. He had as many strikeouts as hits allowed, 157 of each, and had given up only 61 walks in 224 innings.
Unfortunately, September was not a good month. The Cubs fell to 74-75 on September 20, but evened their record the next day, dealing a 10-1 shellacking to the Mets behind Maddux. They then proceeded to lose their next eight games, assuring themselves of their 17th losing season in a 20-year span. After taking two of three from the Expos at Wrigley in the concluding series of the year, they finished at 78-84. The team seemed to be drifting along just south of mediocrity. They had now won between 76 and 78 games in five out of their last six seasons, a streak broken only by their divisional championship year of 1989.
The only highlights of the last month of the season were provided by Maddux, who was 4-1 during the month, with his 20th win of the season coming via complete-game shutout against the Pirates on September 30. He became the first Cubs pitcher to win 20 since Rick Reuschel in 1977. For the 26-year old hurler it was an incredible year, which marked his arrival as not only a top-of-the-line starter, but a pitcher with Hall of Fame ability. Maddux's 20 wins led the league, as did his 268 innings pitched. He was third in strikeouts with 199. His microscopic 2.18 ERA was, somewhat amazingly, only third in the league, but he was first (retroactively) in adjusted ERA, a measure that takes into account the effect of each pitcher's home park. According to another retroactive stat, Baseball-Reference.com's Wins Above Replacement (rWAR), Maddux was not only the best pitcher, but the best player in all of MLB in 1992. It all added up to his first NL Cy Young Award.
The Cubs had two starters having great seasons in 1992. Morgan justified the Cubs' faith in him by finishing with a 2.55 ERA in 240 innings, resulting in a 16-8 record. The rest of the starters and the bullpen were just OK (Bob Scanlan led the team with only 14 saves), but the Maddux and Morgan combination helped the Cubs finish 5th in the league in ERA.
Whereas in 1991, a strong offense had been let down by a weak pitching staff, in 1992, a decent pitching staff was undermined by a weak offense, as the Cubs finished just 10th in the league in runs scored. The Cubs' trio of offensive stars did alright. Sandberg bolstered his Hall of Fame credentials with another fine year, hitting .304 with 100 runs scored and homering 26 times. Mark Grace hit .307 and 37-year old Andre Dawson led the team with 90 RBIs while homering 22 times and batting .277. As far as decent offensive performances, though, that was it. No one besides that trio drove in or scored even 50 runs and no one besides Sandberg and Dawson hit as many as 10 homers. With Maddux in the walk year of his contract in 1992 and Dawson and Sandberg on the wrong side of 30, the future seemed very uncertain.
1992 Cubs Batting Leaders: R - Ryne Sandberg, 100; H - Sandberg, 186; HR - Sandberg, 26; RBI - Dawson, 90; BA - Mark Grace, .307; OBP - Grace, .380; SP - Sandberg, .510
1992 Cubs Pitching Leaders: G - Chuck McElroy, 72; IP - Greg Maddux, 268; W - Maddux, 20; SO - Maddux, 199; ERA - Maddux, 2.18; SV - Bob Scanlan, 14
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)