1994 - Mercifully Short

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