Ranking the Greatest Chicago Cubs Since 2000
Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo have been quite the dynamic duo over the past four-plus seasons, but does either one rank as the best Chicago Cub of the 21st century?
In filling out the top 10 for the franchise's recent history, we considered five main factors: All-Star Game selection, awards (MVP, Rookie of the Year, Cy Young, Gold Glove and Silver Slugger), Baseball Reference wins above replacement (WAR), length of tenure with the Cubs and team success while on the roster.
The first two data points let us know how well each player stacked up against his peers at that time—even though All-Star selections are much more of a popularity contest than a true measurement of which players were most deserving. To make up for that, WAR is the most heavily weighted factor, as that is the better barometer of value added.
Tenure is included because a B-plus player for 11 seasons could be deemed better than, say, four years of a perennial All-Star. And as for team success, we looked at whether the squad clearly improved (or clearly got worse) after acquiring or promoting the player.
One other quick note: Only statistics accumulated since the start of the 2000 season were considered, even if the player was on the Cubs roster before the turn of the millennium. Among players considered, that only applies to 1998 NL MVP Sammy Sosa and 1998 NL Rookie of the Year Kerry Wood. Each of those two is lower in the rankings than they would have been if pre-2000 stats were included.
Honorable Mentions
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Mark Prior
Prior was one of Major League Baseball's greatest flash-in-the-pan stars, dominating the 2003 season to the tune of an 18-6 record with a 2.43 ERA and better than 10 strikeouts per nine innings. But a variety of injuries drastically reduced his effectiveness and his durability, knocking him out of the majors by the age of 25.
Geovany Soto
Similar to Prior, Soto was somewhat of a one-hit wonder. The catcher batted .285 and slugged 23 home runs en route to the 2008 NL Rookie of the Year Award. But he hit below .230 in three of his next four seasons before the Cubs basically gave him away at the 2012 trade deadline.
Javier Baez
The cautionary tales of Prior and Soto kept us from putting the runner-up for the 2018 NL MVP in our top 10, but Baez clearly has the talent to make that look like a poor decision in the long run. He's already at 22 home runs this season, and his current triple slash (.289/.324/.556) is almost identical to last year's (.290/.326/.554). Even if he never gets his strikeout rate under control (career 28.2 percent), this slugging middle infielder should be special.
Willson Contreras
Like Baez, Contreras was named an All-Star in both 2018 and 2019. But (health permitting) he isn't even close to halfway through his MLB career. It's hard to lock him in as one of the 10 best Cubs since 2000 when he has barely accumulated 10 wins above replacement.
Ryan Dempster
Dempster's decade-long journey from an All-Star as a starter with the Florida Marlins to Tommy John surgery with the Cincinnati Reds to three years as the Cubs closer to another All-Star roster as a starting pitcher was nothing short of remarkable. But aside from going 17-6 with a 2.96 ERA in 2008, he wasn't often much more than a replacement-level pitcher.
Alfonso Soriano
Soriano hit 181 home runs in his six-plus seasons with the Cubs, but at what cost? His batting average plummeted by Year 3, and his cumulative WAR was just 8.1. His back-loaded contract became an albatross, which played a big part in the club's decision to go into rebuilding mode.
10. Kyle Hendricks
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Career Marks with Chicago (2014-Present): 59-40, 3.11 ERA, 1.12 WHIP, 7.7 K/9, 2016 ERA title, 18.5 WAR
A lot of players proved indispensable during Chicago's run to the 2016 World Series, but perhaps none more so than Kyle Hendricks.
On a pitching staff anchored by veterans like Jon Lester, John Lackey and reigning NL Cy Young Award winner Jake Arrieta, Hendricks entered that season as one of the team's biggest question marks. The previous year, his 3.95 ERA was the worst among Cubs who made at least a dozen starts.
But he was lights out en route to an MLB-best 2.13 ERA. In each of Hendricks' 10 starts in August and September, he went at least six innings while allowing two or fewer runs. He finished third in the NL Cy Young vote, and he wasn't done dominating.
Between the NLCS and World Series, Hendricks logged 21.2 innings with a 0.83 ERA, twice going toe-to-toe with Clayton Kershaw in pitchers' duels. He got the start in Game 7 of the World Series—otherwise known as the most important game in more than a century of Chicago Cubs history—and calmly allowed only one earned run in 4.2 innings of work.
Though he has not yet been selected to an All-Star Game, Hendricks has remained more than serviceable since that phenomenal season. Including the current campaign, he is working on a fourth consecutive year with an ERA below 3.5 and a WHIP better than 1.2. If the 29-year-old can keep that going for another few seasons—the Cubs have him signed through 2023 with a vesting option for 2024—he'll have a strong case to move into the top five.
9. Jon Lester
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Career Marks with Chicago (2015-Present): 69-37, 3.37 ERA, 1.20 WHIP, 8.6 K/9, two-time All-Star, 13.6 WAR
Jon Lester was the signing that proved the Chicago Cubs were finally getting serious about ending the Curse of the Billy Goat.
They were a sub-.500 team every year from 2010-14, and president of baseball operations Theo Epstein's top-to-bottom rebuilding process got the club's payroll below $90 million in the last of those five seasons—good for 22nd in the majors and even $4 million less than the constantly frugal Oakland Athletics. Only one player on the Cubs roster (Edwin Jackson) made at least $6 million in 2014.
Epstein shelled out the big bucks (six years, $155 million) that December to make Lester—a two-time World Series champion in Boston and a cancer survivor—the anchor of a pitching staff destined for greatness. And in 2016 and 2018, he was worth each and every penny.
Lester went 19-5 with a 2.44 ERA in 2016, finishing second to Max Scherzer in the NL Cy Young vote. He was even stingier in the postseason, making six appearances (three in the World Series) with a 2.02 ERA.
Two years later, Lester won 18 more games, went to the fifth All-Star Game of his career and logged at least 30 games started and 180 innings pitched for the 11th consecutive season. And he was again great in the postseason, giving the Cubs six innings of one-run ball with nine strikeouts in the NL Wild Card Game against the Colorado Rockies.
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8. Kerry Wood
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Career Marks with Chicago (1998-2008, 2011-12): 80-68, 35 saves, 3.67 ERA, 1.26 WHIP, 10.3 K/9, 1998 NL Rookie of the Year, two-time All-Star, 25.5 WAR
Kerry Wood's two greatest claims to fame—winning NL Rookie of the Year and striking out 20 Houston Astros in the fifth start of his career—technically don't count for this ranking, as they both happened in 1998. But even without including that season, Wood had an impressive run with Chicago.
After missing the entire 1999 season due to Tommy John surgery and subsequently struggling through the 2000 campaign, Wood became a force for the first three years of this century. From 2001-03, he struck out 700 batters in 599 innings of work, including an MLB-best 266 whiffs in 2003. Only Randy Johnson (831) and Curt Schilling (803) struck out more batters during that time. That doesn't include the 31 strikeouts Wood recorded in four starts during the 2003 postseason, either.
Command was not his forte, though. Among pitchers who logged at least 400 innings from 2001-03, Wood had the second-worst walk rate (4.34 BB/9) and hit the most batters (47). Thus, when he gave up hits, runners were often already on board.
Fortunately, the strikeout specialist didn't allow many hits. In fact, Wood (6.73) and Pedro Martinez (6.71) were the only pitchers who made at least 70 starts in the 2001-03 window with a rate of no more than 7.25 hits allowed per nine innings. And if you're alone on a list with Pedro, you're probably doing something incredible.
That was the end of his peak, as injuries sustained throughout the 2004-06 seasons brought Wood's career as a starter to an unceremonious close. But he transitioned to the bullpen and racked up 34 saves in 2008 to earn his second spot on an All-Star Game roster.
7. Derrek Lee
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Career Marks with Chicago (2004-10): 179 HR, 574 RBI, .298/.378/.524, 2005 NL Batting Champ, two Gold Gloves, two-time All-Star, 22.6 WAR
Derrek Lee was already a rock-solid player before he arrived in Chicago. In each of his final four seasons with the Florida Marlins, he had at least 20 home runs, 70 runs scored, 70 runs batted in and a .270 average. He also stole a combined 40 bases in his last two years with the Marlins, won a Gold Glove and helped propel them to the 2003 World Series crown.
But after the Cubs traded Hee-Seop Choi to acquire Lee—retrospectively one of the most lopsided MLB deals of this century—he kicked it into a higher gear. Excluding the 2006 season in which Lee missed more than 100 games due to a broken wrist, his average season from 2004-09 consisted of a .305 batting average with 31 home runs, 97 runs, 98 RBI and 42 doubles.
In particular, Lee terrorized National League pitchers in 2005, batting .335 with 46 home runs and 107 RBI. He led the NL in batting average that year and is still the only Cub to do so since Bill Buckner in 1980. Even though the Cubs finished four games below .500, Lee came in third in the NL MVP vote.
Despite only playing 141 games, he also placed ninth in the 2009 NL MVP vote while swatting 35 home runs with a career-best 111 RBI.
In addition to the batting accolades, Lee won Gold Gloves in 2005 and 2007 for his defensive prowess at first base.
6. Aramis Ramirez
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Career Marks with Chicago (2003-11): 239 HR, 806 RBI, .294/.356/.531, two-time All-Star, one-time Silver Slugger, 24.1 WAR
Aramis Ramirez was one of the most successful players for whom it's still fair to wonder: What if he had been able to stay healthy? He spent 18 seasons in the majors, but he only played 150 or more games three times. In four of his eight-plus seasons with Chicago, he missed at least 30 contests.
Yet through all of the bumps, bruises, sprains and strains, he was one of the best power hitters in Cubs history. Ramirez ranks third in slugging percentage (.531) on the franchise's all-time leaderboard, trailing only Hack Wilson (.590) and Sammy Sosa (.569).
It didn't take long for Ramirez to become one of the fan favorites in Chicago. He hit 15 home runs between August and September after he was acquired from the Pittsburgh Pirates before the 2003 trade deadline, and he hit four more four-baggers that postseason.
In his first full season with the Cubs (145 games in 2004), he hit a career-best .318 with 36 home runs and came in 10th in the NL MVP race. He finished in the top 17 in the MVP race in four of his first five full seasons in Chicago, averaging 32 home runs and 105 RBI during that half-decade.
Perhaps most important of all, Ramirez became a staple at the hot corner, which had been an issue for the Cubs for decades. After losing Ron Santo and then Bill Madlock in the 1970s, third base was a gigantic question mark at Wrigley Field every season until Ramirez arrived. He never won a Gold Glove, but he was adequate at fielding a difficult position. With his help, the Cubs had one of the stingiest defenses in the National League in 2004, 2007 and 2008.
5. Jake Arrieta
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Career Marks with Chicago (2013-17): 68-31, 2.73 ERA, 1.03 WHIP, 8.9 K/9, 2015 NL Cy Young, one-time All-Star, one-time Silver Slugger, 20.1 WAR
Fans of both the Baltimore Orioles and the Philadelphia Phillies are wondering why in the world they didn't get the Jake Arrieta the Cubs got.
In his three-plus years in Baltimore, Arrieta went from not great to downright unplayable. When he was traded to Chicago in 2013, he had a career ERA of 5.46 and was sitting on a mark of 7.23 through five appearances that season. And since thriving with the Cubs, he has been making about $1 million per start in Philadelphia with a higher ERA (4.23) and a much lower strikeout rate (7.2 K/9) than expected.
For the Cubbies, though, he was a bonafide ace who played a big part in bringing the franchise its first World Series title in more than a century.
In addition to winning the NL Cy Young Award in 2015 with an MLB-best 22 wins and three complete-game shutouts, Arrieta finished in the top 10 in voting in both 2014 and 2016. In those three seasons, he racked up 50 wins with a 2.42 ERA while averaging 3.59 strikeouts per walk. Per Fangraphs, the only National League pitcher with more WAR during that window was Clayton Kershaw.
And while his four starts in the 2015 NLDS, 2015 NLCS, 2016 NLDS and 2016 NLCS were hardly his best, Arrieta was on point in the 2016 World Series against the Cleveland Indians.
Pitching on the road in both games, he went 2-0, allowing just five hits and three runs with 15 strikeouts in 11.1 innings of work. In his first start (Game 2), he didn't even allow a hit until the sixth inning. Ben Zobrist was named the MVP of the World Series, but that honor easily could have gone to Arrieta instead.
4. Sammy Sosa
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Career Marks with Chicago (1992-2004): 545 HR, 1414 RBI, .284/.358/.569, 1998 NL MVP, seven-time All-Star, six-time Silver Slugger, 58.8 WAR
If Sammy Sosa's full run with the Cubs counted here, he'd be the clear-cut No. 1 player. However, 60 percent of his games played with the Cubs came before 2000, including his MVP campaign and two of his three seasons with more than 50 home runs.
Still, it was tempting to put Slammin' Sammy in the top spot since he batted .295 and clubbed 238 home runs just in the 2000-04 time frame.
Sosa finished among the top 10 in the NL MVP vote each year from 2000-03, and he certainly would've won the award in 2001 were it not for Barry Bonds mashing a record 73 homers. That season, Sosa batted .328 and slugged .737 with 64 home runs and 160 RBI—all career highs except for the home runs (66 in 1998). He was also intentionally walked 37 times in 2001, which was even more free passes to first base than Bonds received (35).
Sosa led the majors in home runs in 2000 (50) and led the National League in that category in 2002 (49). Those feats are even more impressive when you consider he had almost no supporting cast in those seasons. The Cubs were a combined 60 games below .500 those two years, and no teammate even reached 20 home runs in 2000.
Sosa hit at least 35 home runs and drove in at least 100 runs in nine consecutive seasons from 1995-2003. In MLB history, only Alex Rodriguez (1998-2008) has had a longer streak of that nature.
Years of (never confirmed) steroid allegations and the corked bat incident in 2003 have kept Sosa out of the Hall of Fame, but there's no question he's one of the best players in the history of this franchise.
3. Carlos Zambrano
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Career Marks with Chicago (2001-11): 125-81, 3.60 ERA, 1.32 WHIP, 7.6 K/9, three-time All-Star, three-time Silver Slugger, 37.6 WAR
The best individual season among Cubs pitchers since 2000 belongs to either Mark Prior in 2003 or Jake Arrieta in 2015. But as far as multiple-season longevity is concerned, no one can even hold a candle to Carlos Zambrano.
Big Z made 282 starts during his 11 seasons in Chicago, which is nearly twice as many as the next-closest pitcher—154 by Ryan Dempster. Zambrano also has 56 more wins and 305 more strikeouts than any other recent North Sider can boast.
And it's not like he was just some C-plus-caliber innings eater who never felt like leaving via free agency. Zambrano finished fifth in the NL Cy Young vote in 2004, 2006 and 2007. In the first of those three campaigns—a year in which 10 National League batters finished with at least 35 home runs and 100 RBI—Zambrano posted a career-best 2.75 ERA and won 16 games.
He never came particularly close to matching that mark again, but Zambrano had a sub-4.00 ERA every year from 2002-10 and was the Cubs' opening day starter each year from 2005-10. Hall of Famer Fergie Jenkins (seven) is the only other player in franchise history to toe the rubber in the first game of at least six seasons.
Zambrano is also the gold standard for slugging hurlers of the modern era. Since 2000, he leads all pitchers with 24 home runs, 75 runs and 71 RBI. The only pitchers even in the same conversation are Mike Hampton and Madison Bumgarner. Zambrano hit at least one home run each season from 2003-12. And in three of those years, he also batted at least .300.
2. Anthony Rizzo
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Career Marks with Chicago (2012-Present): 209 HR, 684 RBI, .274/.373/.495, three-time All-Star, two-time Gold Glove, one-time Silver Slugger, 31.3 WAR
It's still sometimes hard to believe this is the same Anthony Rizzo who was an outright disaster when the San Diego Padres promoted him to the big leagues in 2011. After hitting a triple and a home run in the first three games of his career, he didn't get any of either over the course of the next 32 games, batting .121 and slugging .187 with 33 strikeouts.
The Cubs traded for Rizzo the following January and somehow ended up acquiring one of the most consistent players in the game today.
Rizzo has batted at least .270 with 25 or more home runs in each of the past five seasons. (With 19 dingers and a .272 average at the All-Star break, he appears well on his way to extending that streak to six years.) In each of those five seasons, Rizzo earned votes for NL MVP, including fourth-place finishes in 2015 and 2016.
Rizzo is also arguably the best active defensive first baseman. Per Fangraphs, his 29.4 ultimate zone rating (UZR) since 2012 is the highest for that position. He has already won two Gold Gloves (2016 and 2018), and he probably deserves even more than that.
And while his career postseason statistics aren't anything special, Rizzo was huge for the Cubs in the 2016 NLCS and World Series, batting .340/.431/.620 with three home runs, 10 RBI and two stolen bases during that 13-game stretch.
1. Kris Bryant
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Career Marks with Chicago (2015-Present): 2015 NL Rookie of the Year, 2016 NL MVP, 124 HR, 370 RBI, .286/.388/.520, three-time All-Star, 24.5 WAR
The Cubs have only had one Rookie of the Year in the past decade and one MVP in the last 20 years, and you're looking at both of them.
As much as the Jon Lester signing signaled the start of Chicago's return to national relevance, calling up Kris Bryant two weeks into the 2015 season was an even bigger deal for this organization.
Per Fangraphs, the No. 2 overall pick in the 2013 MLB Amateur Draft is responsible for three of the six leading seasons by WAR among Cubs batters since 2000, and he has the club's three best seasons of the past decade.
In 644 career games, Bryant already has a higher Fangraphs WAR (26.7) than Sammy Sosa had in 729 games played in the 2000s (25.9), and he's only 1.1 WAR behind Anthony Rizzo even though the first baseman has played in 454 more games with the Cubs.
Though he's hardly a Gold Glove candidate, Bryant's versatility as a fielder has been a significant asset for the Cubs. He's still primarily the third baseman, but his ability to man any of the outfield spots or first base gives manager Joe Maddon more wiggle room to set the optimal lineup on any given night.
He missed 60 games of the 2018 season due to shoulder inflammation, but he's back on track this year, earning a trip to his third All-Star Game with 17 home runs and a .297 batting average.
Statistics for active Cubs current through the 2019 All-Star Break. Unless otherwise noted, all WAR and advanced metrics courtesy of Baseball-Reference.
Kerry Miller is a multisport writer for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter, @kerrancejames.
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