Image
Mordecai Brown
The Top 10 Best Seasons Ever by a Cub
As part of this Cubs history kick that started with Wiklifield, I had this idea of trying to figure out what was the best individual season by a member of the Cubs. As I started pouring through the research I decided that the burden of annointing the best Cubs' season ever was too much for this humble Cubs fan. Now I realize as a blogger and top 10 list-maker, I'm suppose to just present my opinion as fact and not accept any other arguments, but I decided for this instance to enlist the rest of the TCR writers.
I put together a list of 27 great Cubs seasons and put it to a vote and would weigh it MVP-style (10 pts for a first place vote, 9 for a second place vote, etc). The criteria for this list were all the Cubs' NL MVP seasons and Cy Young winners and then the best of the rest based on sabermetric dominance in either WARP-3 or Win Shares (Lee in 2005) , historical signifcance (Wilson's RBI record in 1930) or place in Cubs history (Sutcliffe in 1984). Now there may have been a few names that deserved to be in that original top 27 list over some other names, but I'm sure I didn't miss the top season. As I mentioned in the poll, just think of it as the NCAA tournament...there's a lot of arguments on who deserved to be in the original 65 picks, but those that are left out never really had a chance to win the whole thing.
The only instruction I laid out for their votes was to use whatever criteria each writer saw fit. Some of us have a sabermetric slant to the world, some like MVP trophies, some just remember what we saw and its impact at the time and so forth and so on. Transmission, Cubnut, Dr. Hecht and myself ended up participating and our ballots are listed at the end of the post. The final results for the readers voting is also at the end. We by no means believe this is the list to rule all lists, but it was an interesting exercise nonetheless. I mean if Arizona Phil or Christian had submitted their ballots, the final results could have been very different. Also, we tend to believe with our eyes and hearts and I don't think any of us saw much baseball before 1950 - and for some of us - not much before 1980. Speaking for myself, I had a hard time giving double credit for a player, generally focusing on what I felt to be their best season, even if they had a second or third great season that deserved to be recognized. But this is more art than science and the final results certainly are skewed by a small sample size.
- Read more about The Top 10 Best Seasons Ever by a Cub
- 21 comments
- Log in or register to post comments
Recent comments
crunch (view)
morel with 4 clean plays in 4 innings...showed off his 100000000mph arm a couple times.
cody bellinger not having a good 4th, though...5 run leads are handy when your CF is making your pitcher have a 5-out inning. 2nd blown chance was ruled a hit even though it went in/out of his glove...1st was lost in the lights, also ruled a hit.
crunch (view)
welcome back happ! double off the wall 1st PA back.
crunch (view)
oh yeah, totally, i was just chiming about why i fan like i fan.
i would like nothing more than hendricks to keep on hendricks'ing. guys with his stuff can throw for a long, long time as long as it works.
he velocity is actually up a minor amount this year. it's really "damn" when a guy like him not only has gas in the tank, but it's looking like it was years ago. he added a curve a few years ago and it helped a little bit, but he's throwing it less and less while the fb/change combo are less effective.
Alexander Dimm (view)
CRUNCH—There is no one person in this community I’m talking about. My remarks were not directed at you or anyone, but at a tone I’ve noticed lately.
You have a great, dry sense of humor and there is thought behind your comments. You and I don’t always agree but I always understand your position.
Lastly, and I’ll be quiet, I agree with you on Hendricks. We can dislike the recent performance but still love the guy. Lots of questions about his future.
crunch (view)
myself, i make a good amount of outrageously unrealistic comments that are sometimes "violent"...like my recent suggestion of "pulling the bandaid off" by having hendricks throw every inning of every game until he's on the IL.
i would hope any athlete that cares about what is written on the internet realizes how casual fans can be about treating their lives like scripted TV characters that don't have real lives. it's not an excuse to do it, but there's a lot of it out there.
but yeah, in real life i'm rooting for guys to have long and healthy careers even if i'm not happy with current performances...except for some guys...and i'm pretty sure i don't leave grey area for those comments...and almost all of them are not good humans whether they're playing baseball or not...
hendricks was getting a good amount of boos in his last game. i would bet a million that he will get a standing O every time he visits wrigley in his post-playing days, or a return with a new team should his career continue...or if he comes back and puts in an oldschool good performance.
Alexander Dimm (view)
What are the chances we can back off on gloating over other people’s misfortune? One of the things I appreciate about the TCR community is that the remarks are more productive and add to how I like to follow the game.
Lately, however, I’m reading comments that are just mean. If I were an MLB player, I would hate to get a back or finger injury and have someone write ‘hurrah! I hope we never see him again!’ Especially when it is someone we were praising not long ago. I’m not saying ‘don’t express how you feel’ but some comments lately seem downright mean spirited. Stuff I expect from other communities but don’t often see here. The TCR community has always spoken the truth but never with such a dark tone.
Just my two cents. I hope Hendricks comes back and is the professor we all know. He can pitch for the Cubs as long as he wants in my book.
crunch (view)
happ is back (and starting), mervis DH, tauchman gets RF.
morel 5th in the lineup. hoerner continues to lead off, even vs a righty.
George Altman (view)
I don't care to see Hendricks or Smyly on the 26-man Roster the rest of the season. Both, stupid signings and option pick up by Jed.
crunch (view)
i know the cubs are paying the guys, but for the sake of the win/loss column this is some great news.
woo! people getting injured! kick ass!
sportsball is cruel.
would have liked to keep cooper, but it looks like they're gonna go with wisdom if they have to pick a righty who's gonna K 1/3rd of his PA's.
Dolorous Jon Lester (view)
Edwards would be my guess, or maybe they’re hoping Sanders or R Thompson can finally figure it out