Here’s a year where we have to include some non-trade transactions.
The Cubs declined from 98 wins in the pennant year of 1945 to 82 in 1946… and then to a losing record at 69-85 in 1947.
What did the Cubs do? Why, they tried to recapture previous pennant glory by reacquiring some of the guys who had helped them win pennants in the 1930s.
As you can imagine, with those players a decade older, it didn’t work. Many of those transactions were not player-for-player trades, but the Cubs did exactly one of those in ‘47, so I’m going to include some other transactions that affected the team that year.
January 25: Sent Hiram Bithorn to the Pirates for cash considerations
Bithorn was notable at the time of his debut for the Cubs, as he was the first Puerto Rican player in the history of the American and National Leagues.
He had a really good year for the Cubs in 1943, posting a 2.60 ERA in 39 games (30 starts), leading MLB with seven complete-game shutouts, and getting some downballot MVP votes, a 5.5 bWAR season. He missed 1944 and 1945 in military service, and on returning wasn’t as good in 1946. He had returned out of shape (reportedly 25 pounds overweight) and suffered some hand and arm injuries.
Bithorn never played for the Pirates, as the White Sox claimed him on waivers during spring training. He pitched in only two games for the South Siders, and a couple of years in the minors.
Bithorn was shot to death in Mexico by a police officer during a dispute over money with another man. Some further details of this are in Bithorn’s SABR biography. He was only 35 years old.
He was revered in Puerto Rico, where an 18,000-seat baseball stadium built in San Juan was named after him in 1962. It’s still standing. The Cubs played a three-game series there against the Montreal Expos in 2003.
February: Acquired Eddie Malone from the Cardinals for Barney Olsen
This was actually a minor-league deal that’s listed on the Cubs baseball-reference transactions page for 1947 because both players did have MLB experience.
Olsen had played in 28 games for the Cubs in 1941. After that he spent a couple of years playing for various Cubs minor league teams, missed two years in war service, then returned to the Cubs affiliate in Los Angeles in 1946.
Malone, a catcher, had been signed by the Cardinals out of high school in 1938. The Cardinals, around that time, had created an extensive farm system, one of the first by any MLB team. Malone played for a number of those teams through 1944, missed a year for war service, then played three years in the Cubs system at Los Angeles without ever getting a callup. Eventually, in July 1949 the Cubs sent him to the White Sox for cash considerations, and he played in 72 games for the South Siders over the next two years.
I’m including this deal because it shows the sorts of things MLB teams did in those days.
February 25: Signed Bill Lee as a free agent
Lee had been a stalwart pitcher for the Cubs from 1934-43. In 1938, he helped lead the team to the NL pennant with a 22-9 record, a 2.66 ERA and a MLB-leading 8.0 bWAR, one of the best all-time WAR figures for a Cubs pitcher. He finished second in MVP voting to Ernie Lombardi of the Reds, and truth be told, Lee had a better year, and it wasn’t close. If there had been a Cy Young Award in 1938, Lee would likely have been a unanimous choice.
The Cubs, thinking Lee was done at age 33, traded him to the Phillies in mid-1943 in a deal we’ll cover later in this series. Eventually he wound up with the Braves, who released him in early 1947.
By this time Lee was 37 and pretty much done. He made 14 appearances (two starts) for the Cubs and posted a 4.50 ERA. The Cubs sent him to their Double-A affiliate in Tulsa, but his MLB career was over.
This would not be the last attempt by the Cubs in 1947 to recover former glory.
April 15: Acquired Lonny Frey from the Reds for cash considerations
Frey had played several good years for the Dodgers before the Cubs acquired him in 1936 in a deal we’ll cover later in this series.
He played in 78 games for the Cubs, batting .278/.381/.369, which isn’t terrible, missing some games with injuries and not playing well defensively, so the Cubs sent him to the Reds in early 1938 for cash considerations.
It was in Cincinnati that Frey figured things out. Defensive metrics from back then are far from complete, but in 1940 Frey posted 3.3 bWAR — just for his defense, when the Reds played him exclusively at second base, instead of all over the infield as he had done in Brooklyn and Chicago. He also hit .266/.361/.371 and led the NL with 22 stolen bases. The Reds won the pennant, but for some reason Frey did not get a single MVP vote. He did get MVP votes in 1939, 1942 and 1943 and if there had been Gold Gloves back then, Frey probably would have won five or six of them.
Well. The Cubs saw this and must have thought, “We can use that!” Only by the time they got Frey back, just before Opening Day 1947, Frey was 36 years old and done. He batted just .209/.277/.209 in 24 games for the Cubs before they sent him to the Yankees in June for cash considerations.
Another example of the Cubs trying to recapture a player’s past.
But wait, we’re not done with that.
August 23: Signed Billy Jurges as a free agent
Jurges had been the shortstop on three Cubs pennant winners, in 1932, 1935 and 1938. A defensive whiz, he, too, might have won several Gold Gloves in his tenure with the Cubs from 1931-38. He posted 14.4 bWAR in those years.
At 30, they shipped him to the Giants in a deal we’ll cover later, and he continued his good play in New York, making two All-Star teams.
This was actually the second time the Cubs had tried to bring back this popular former player. They signed him in 1946, only to release him at the end of the season. He’d played reasonably well in ‘46 (1.2 bWAR), but in ‘47 he batted just .200/.347/.325 in 14 games and was done. He coached for the Cubs for two years (1948-49) and eventually briefly managed the Red Sox in 1959-60 before a long career as a scout, including scouting for the Cubs from 1979-82.
At the end of the 1947 season, the Cubs pretty much moved on from all the former glory days players, releasing Lee, Jurges, Stan Hack and Claude Passeau.
The Cubs get a D grade for these moves, since they didn’t really improve the team at all.