Cubs who led NL in offensive categories By JohnW53 on May 9, 2021, 5:52am CDT +
45 different offensive categories.
A Cub has led or tied for the National League lead in at least 1 category in
101 of
Hack Wilson led in
17 in 1930; Heinie Zimmerman (1912) and Rogers Hornsby (1929), in 16; Derrek Lee (2005), in 14; and Billy Williams (1972) in 13.
At the other extreme, Walt Moose Moryn and Lee Walls led the NL only once each while with the Cubs tying for most times hit by pitches in 1958, with 8.
Ernie Banks led in WAR (10.2) and defensive WAR (3.5) in 1959, when he was voted Most Valuable Player for the second straight season. But he was only third in offensive WAR (7.8), trailing Hank Aaron (9.1) and Eddie Mathews (8.4).
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I’ve always been a big fan of Hughes (who isn’t?), but I just don’t catch enough games on the radio. This will be a nice compromise.
Now let’s get to some news from the rest of the league …
Lindor Extension Talks Will Begin Soon
For all the reasons Brett laid out in his post, I wasn’t
particularly worried to learn that the Cubs haven’t yet had any extension discussions with Kris Bryant this spring, despite it being the right time of the year for those sort of talks. But I’d also be lying if I said I wasn’t a little concerned that talks with him – or also Anthony Rizzo and Javy Báez – wouldn’t begin at all. Like, what’s the hold up, right?
Baseball-Reference
You weren’t expecting to find Chuck Smith placed so highly in this countdown, were you?
Born in Memphis and raised in Cleveland, Smith took a circuitous route to the Marlins major league roster. We typically apply the “journeyman” label to ballplayers who frequently change teams once they reach the pros, but Smith was a cross-country traveler even before that. He attended high school in New York, then went the JuCo route (Central Arizona College) before arriving at Indiana State University.
More than 1,500 players were selected in the 1991 MLB Draft, but not Smith. He inked an amateur free agent deal with the Astros instead. He split his next seven seasons with the Astros and White Sox organizations, reaching as high as Triple-A. In 1998, the right-hander tried his luck overseas in the Mexican League and Chinese Professional Baseball League (Taiwan). Over the summer, he had an excellent stretch of starts with the indy ball Sioux Falls Canaries. The Rangers
Today’s chapter features three Marlins from yesteryear.
The Miami and Florida Marlins have employed a total of 630 players through their first 28 seasons of major league play. We’re currently in the final bracket comprised of players with 800 or more PA/BF accrued while with the franchise. Players are sorted in ascending bWAR divided by PA/BF. Today’s group of three finished the Marlins’ leg of their careers with slightly positive bWAR values.
Juan Encarnación is a six-foot-two right-handed outfielder from Las Matas de Farfan, Dominican Republic. In 1992, he signed with the Detroit Tigers through free agency at the age of 16.