Chicago Cubs
Overview
It seems weird that a city as large as Chicago would not have seen their first pennant until 1931 and still have just 2 of them total. The Cubs don't quite seem to believe it themselves. Although their victory seems miles behind them now, they're still acting like they're just a move or two away from contention. Witness the recent acquisition of Charles Payne. He cost the Cubbies a pretty penny but they think he'll be just what the doctor ordered to bolster a weak offense.
It is rather surprising to think that a team that plays in Wrigley Field could have its woes so centered around a bad offense. The pitching staff and defense are actually probably even better than the stats recognize (3.74 ERA, 5th in the NL), but that also makes the offense even worse (.259 average was 7th, and the 612 runs scored were 6th). Overall, though, this is a team with issues from top to bottom, and not even a young team that might be able to develop its way out of its problems. We forsee a long season on the North Side.
Steve Foreman returns for his 5th season at the helm of the Cubs. He's revered in this town for the '31 World Championship but the fact is that that was a very weak year for the National League as a whole. Most seasons, 88 victories gets you a 3rd or 4th place trophy, not a shot at the World Series. Prior to the Cubs, he had non-noteworthy tenures with the South Siders and the Indians. We guess that the lack of success with the Sox is part of the reason Cubs fans love him; he's like a gem that was taken away from the other guys because they didn't value it enough.
Pitching
The biggest problem with the Cubs' pitching staff is that it lacks an ace, the kind of guy the team can turn to when it really needs a victory.
Paul Moore was the top pitcher last year, but that's not really the same thing. He won 21 games for the team in '32 but missed 2 months last year with back spasms. When he did play, he walked more batters than he struck out, which is fine if you're a 2nd or 3rd starter but not if you're a first.
Other than him,
Barry Fawcett played well but he is not a young man and should not be counted on to equal last season's play.
Phil Cutshall might be a better answer; he had some issues with the longball last season but mixes in five different pitches for strikes and is also young enough to learn to consistently keep the ball down.
Todd Lowman is another young guy who doesn't look like a future ace but who could be a good middle of the rotation man.
Code:
Player Age W L Pct G GS SV IP H ER HR BB SO ERA
Todd Lowman 21 9 13 0.409 29 29 0 213.1 233 98 9 82 67 4.13
Paul Moore 25 13 8 0.619 23 23 0 176 167 56 11 63 56 2.86
Barry Fawcett 33 11 6 0.647 19 19 0 158.2 147 50 4 39 53 2.84
Brian Law 32 6 12 0.333 20 20 0 145 168 61 9 40 48 3.79
Phil Cutshall 24 7 15 0.318 31 18 1 154.2 202 87 13 51 53 5.06
Phil Hendrix 34 3 9 0.250 16 15 0 115.2 123 46 6 52 26 3.58
*Kurtis Houk 26 3 7 0.300 16 13 0 103 117 58 2 66 28 5.07
Charlie Goforth 29 5 8 0.385 36 6 3 87.1 100 32 1 37 29 3.30
*Don Smith 25 1 2 0.333 34 2 2 68.1 79 29 1 26 14 3.82
Larry Marron 22 3 2 0.600 24 0 0 48.1 44 17 1 17 21 3.17
Mark Jacobs 29 2 3 0.400 28 0 8 42 32 9 2 10 26 1.93
Jim Hogan 29 3 1 0.750 6 6 0 41.2 40 14 1 12 17 3.02
Ernie Hawks 22 1 1 0.500 9 3 0 23.2 28 16 1 18 10 6.08
Team Totals 27 67 87 0.435 291 154 14 1377.2 1480 573 61 513 448 3.74
Catchers
We don't know if there was Kryptonite behind the plate last year but the Cubs had a beast of a time finding a backstop who could do anything at the plate.
John Joseph, a serviceable backup with the Phillies, Tigers, and Red Sox, was the first guy they tried but when he hit almost 100 points below his career average of .303 they moved on. Internal prospects
Harry DeRosier and
Mark Sudduth also failed to hit so in desperation the Cubs reached out to the South Siders and picked up
Al Thiele in exchange for their closer Mark Jacobs. As recently as 1932 he had hit .319 with 9 homeruns and 57 RBI but with the Cubs he hit just .174. The last man they ran,
Earl Schell, was the Cubs' starter in 1032 but had missed the entire year with a torn back muscle suffered in spring training. He was the best of the players they tried but even then his performance was a mite disappointing: the year before, he hit .331/.398/.500 and would have been an All-Star if such a term existed in 1932.
Code:
Pos Player Age G GS AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO AVG OBP SLG
C John Joseph 32 54 40 128 8 27 1 1 3 14 0 0 8 15 0.211 0.252 0.305
C Harry DeRosier 25 54 35 114 12 23 4 1 1 14 0 0 16 2 0.202 0.298 0.281
C #Al Thiele 33 26 25 92 12 16 1 0 1 9 0 0 10 13 0.174 0.255 0.217
C *Earl Schell 23 17 17 58 9 15 4 1 1 9 0 0 11 4 0.259 0.377 0.414
C Charlie Maynor 33 19 19 57 2 17 5 1 0 8 0 0 4 9 0.298 0.344 0.421
C Mark Sudduth 22 22 18 55 2 10 3 0 0 2 0 0 3 11 0.182 0.237 0.236
Infield
Carson Groth basically matched his output from his age-20 season in '33. We'd call that a disappointment except that the entire league dropped significantly. The lack of power is still a concern but that's something he can still develop. Groth's backup
Ethan Hardin is making quite a name for himself as the Cubbies' pinch hitting specialist - so much so, in fact, that the Phillies took him on in the Charles Payne deal to do the same for them.
Ed Lantz opened the season in the middle of a 24-game hitting streak, which ended up the 2nd longest in the major leagues last year. He never could get his bat going after that point, though, and eventually lost his job to
Ken Rooney, who almost won Rookie of the Year honors despite only playing in the bigs for half the season. Now that Lantz is gone (also to Philly in the Payne deal) the job is Rooney's to keep.
Bob Bodie took over for the departed John Chastain at the hot corner and did a good job of it. He was also the team's cleanup hitter for much of the season but that was really by default. He'll be much better suited in a spot a bit further down in the order.
Fred Harris committed a lot of errors last year but the Cubs are still happy with his defense. He just gets to a lot of balls that other, lesser shortstops wouldn't even be able to make a play on. Some softer hands could lead to a long string of Gold Gloves in the future for this man. On the batting end, he had a surprisingly decent season despite hitting most of the time in the 8 hole.
Code:
Pos Player Age G GS AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO AVG OBP SLG
1B *Carson Groth 21 151 151 638 72 206 48 3 6 63 0 0 42 62 0.323 0.364 0.436
1B Ethan Hardin 26 85 3 87 11 26 8 0 1 12 0 0 10 7 0.299 0.364 0.425
2B *Ed Lantz 26 101 81 315 42 69 14 2 7 34 1 0 36 31 0.219 0.301 0.343
2B Ken Rooney 26 67 58 256 29 79 17 7 0 28 1 1 7 28 0.309 0.327 0.430
2B Henry Files 29 30 22 80 8 16 1 0 0 6 1 0 18 8 0.200 0.347 0.212
2B Jim Donovan 20 13 13 51 4 12 0 0 2 6 0 0 0 6 0.235 0.235 0.353
3B Bob Bodie 28 133 132 519 62 142 20 4 12 89 0 3 35 57 0.274 0.321 0.397
3B Zhu-lan Zhang 28 58 33 149 23 36 6 1 4 22 0 1 19 9 0.242 0.327 0.376
SS Fred Harris 26 123 122 465 49 126 41 8 12 55 0 0 29 68 0.271 0.313 0.471
SS Tom Peay 32 1 1 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0.000 0.000 0.000
Outfield
The outfield as a whole has to be listed as the single most disappointing aspect of the North Side baseball club.
Ernie Parker looked like a budding superstar in 1931 but concerns about his health and a simple lack of ability to reach his potential have caused a lot of fans to focus on his faults rather than his strengths. He's still 26, a great fielder in left, and a guy who finds ways to get on base. The lack of speed makes him a poor leadoff candidate but he does have the bat control for #2.
Ray Thompson really did about what he should have done in 1932. So why are Chicago fans so disappointed in him? He hit just .222 but did get on base a good deal - his 54 runs scored weren't bad for what ended up being a half-season of play. A continued inability to hit righties meant that he stopped facing them somewhere around mid-June, and his power was mostly wasted at the top of the order. The Milkman is never going to repeat his 1930 performance with the Cardinals - 33 homeruns was the record at the time - but he wasn't terrible last year like he was in '32. He was overmatched in center and Charles Payne will be manning the spot for the future.
Tom Battle was the best right fielder on the team but he went out to the Boston Red Sox in midseason. In his stead, the Cubbies first turned to
Ronald Normand, who'd hit .333 and .320 the previous two seasons. Out of the Baker Bowl, though, he found that his blasts off the right field wall turned into harmless pop-outs.
Don Williams did an okay job out there but the team kept finding themselves returning to Normand in the hopes that he could break out of his season-long slump.
Code:
Pos Player Age G GS AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO AVG OBP SLG
LF *Ernie Parker 26 108 105 414 47 118 21 3 4 39 0 0 57 15 0.285 0.371 0.379
LF Brian Ladd 22 25 25 96 9 18 4 0 2 8 0 0 8 10 0.188 0.248 0.292
LF #Ben Purcell 25 13 1 15 2 2 0 0 0 1 0 0 4 3 0.133 0.316 0.133
CF *Ray Thompson 33 81 79 306 54 68 11 1 15 35 11 9 49 31 0.222 0.335 0.412
CF Chris Harris 30 79 54 266 29 71 8 5 2 23 12 7 13 16 0.267 0.300 0.357
CF Dwayne McNeil 30 24 14 71 6 17 1 0 1 6 2 1 5 4 0.239 0.299 0.296
CF Eric Propst 31 6 4 18 1 4 1 0 0 2 0 0 1 3 0.222 0.263 0.278
CF Jim Cathcart 30 1 1 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0.000 0.000 0.000
RF Ronald Normand 34 101 78 314 33 78 5 1 3 23 6 3 27 24 0.248 0.313 0.299
RF Don Williams 25 58 53 228 21 63 10 1 1 20 6 5 6 29 0.276 0.301 0.342
RF *Tom Battle 27 38 38 155 20 47 9 2 6 21 1 4 9 19 0.303 0.347 0.503
RF Patrick Cleary 23 10 10 42 10 17 1 0 1 6 3 1 4 0 0.405 0.457 0.500
- Ken Harrison 23 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.000 0.000 0.000
Team Totals 27.1 1790 1386 5429 612 1407 265 43 88 592 44 35 444 533 0.259 0.316 0.372