Once again in this year, the Cubs got a guy who might have helped them… if they had only kept him.
After having a winning season in 1946, following their 1945 pennant, the Cubs dropped back under .500 in 1947.
This led to a bunch of wheeling and dealing, mostly on waiver claims that didn’t work out.
But there were some significant trades made by the team in 1948. Some actually worked out okay.
Others might have, except the Cubs didn’t keep the good players they received.
March 1: Acquired Dick Culler and Walt Lanfranconi from the Braves for Bobby Sturgeon
These were not big names in Cubs history. Sturgeon had played for the Cubs since 1940 as a backup infielder, missing three years (1943-45) in war service. He played in just 34 games for the Braves, batting .218/.256/.282. So it shouldn’t have been too hard to get better value than that, right?
Well… not really. Culler batted .169/.275/.191 in 48 games for the Cubs. Lanfranconi, who had pitched for the Cubs in a handful of games before the war (1941), but never pitched for the Cubs after the trade, instead spending several more years in the minor leagues.
Another “why bother” trade.
October 4: Acquired Harry Walker from the Phillies for Bill Nicholson
Nicholson played 10 years for the Cubs and was unquestionably their biggest star during the war years. He led the NL in home runs in 1943 and 1944, finished second in MVP voting in ‘44, and was a four-time All-Star. His 205 home runs as a Cub rank ninth in team history. In 1948, he hit a home run that was said to have barely missed hitting the scoreboard before landing on Waveland Avenue.
Management correctly realized that Nicholson was pretty much done at age 33. He was only a part-time player for the Phillies for the next five seasons and posted just 3.9 bWAR.
Walker played in just 42 games for the Cubs in 1949 and was included in a deal that brought another popular power hitter, Hank Sauer, to the Cubs. So in that sense he did help provide some value for the team.
December 8: Acquired Frankie Gustine and Cal McLish from the Pirates for Cliff Chambers and Clyde McCullough to the Pittsburgh Pirates
McCullough had been a Cubs catcher for seven of the previous nine seasons, and they’d eventually get him back in another deal. Chambers had pitched only one year in Chicago and did a bit better in two-plus years in Pittsburgh (4.8 bWAR) before he was traded to the Cardinals.
Gustine was a 10-year Pirate who’d received downballot MVP votes and was a three-time All-Star. Naturally, at age 29 he was a flop for the Cubs (.226/.279/.352) and was let go on waivers to the A’s before the 1949 season even ended.
The key to this deal was McLish, who had begun his MLB career with the Dodgers as a teenager during the war years and pitched sparingly for the Pirates.
The Cubs, despite being a pretty bad team, did not give McLish much of a chance in 1949 at age 23 — just eight games. He spent 1950 in the Cubs minor leagues, threw poorly in 30 games (17 starts) in 1951 — 4.45 ERA — then spent four more years in the Pacific Coast League, throwing pretty well each year, before he was released by the Cubs.
Signed by Cleveland, he had four decent years there, then pitched for the Reds and White Sox before putting together a nice year (13-11, 3.26 ERA, 1.6 bWAR) for the Phillies at age 37 in 1963. Among those games was the first Cubs game I ever attended, this one, the last of five career shutouts McLish threw.
McLish wasn’t a great pitcher (just 7.6 career bWAR) but who knows? If the Cubs had just given him a chance and had better coaching and managing, maybe he could have given them a few good years in the 1950s and early 1960s. It’s not like they had many guys better than that in those years.
The most memorable thing about McLish, born in Oklahoma in 1926, was his full given name: Calvin Coolidge Julius Caesar Tuskahoma McLish. They don’t do ‘em like that anymore, that’s for sure.
December 14: Acquired Monk Dubiel and Dutch Leonard from the Phillies for Hank Borowy and Eddie Waitkus
Borowy had been the savior of the Cubs’ 1945 season when he was acquired mid-season from the Yankees. He went 11-2 with a 2.13 ERA in 15 games (14 starts), 3.7 bWAR in less than half a season. He was only 29 and the Cubs thought they had an ace for a few years, anyway.
By 1948 injuries had taken their toll and the Cubs decided to cut ties and deal him. Dubiel pitched reasonably well for the Cubs for four seasons before he, too, was traded away.
The real prize here was Leonard. He had 15 MLB seasons under his belt already by this time for the Dodgers, Senators and Phillies and turned 40 the spring after the trade. The Cubs used him as a starter in ‘49 but after that figured he could be useful in relief. Leonard put together three outstanding relief seasons for the Cubs from 1950-52, with a 2.87 ERA in 121 relief appearances, three seasons worth 6.1 bWAR. He made the All-Star team in 1950.
By 1953 he was basically done, but good heavens, he was already 44 years old. Until Hoyt Wilhelm pitched in three games for the Cubs in 1970, Leonard was the only man to pitch in a game for the Cubs past age 43. Since those two, the only pitcher age 42 or older to appear for the Cubs is Koji Uehara, who made 49 relief appearances for the Cubs in 2017 at age 42.
Oh, yes, Eddie Waitkus. Famously, he was shot and wounded on June 14, 1949 by a young woman named Ruth Ann Steinhagen, who was obsessed with him, in his first year with the Phillies. From Waitkus’ SABR biography:
Steinhagen at first wasn’t convinced she’d shot Waitkus, but eventually stepped over Eddie, returned the gun to the closet, and called the front desk, saying that she had just shot a man in her room.
That call probably saved Waitkus’s life. He was near death when he was taken to the Illinois Masonic Hospital. The bullet had pierced a lung and was lodged near his spine. He would undergo two operations at Masonic before being transferred to Billings Memorial Hospital on the University of Chicago campus, where he had a third operation. There he developed a persistent fever and it was determined that he needed a fourth operation to remove the bullet.
After being indicted for attempted murder, Ruth Ann Steinhagen was declared mentally ill and committed to the Kankakee State Hospital. She had been obsessed with Waitkus since she first saw him play for the Cubs in April of 1947. Although she had never met him, she attended all the Cubs games and would wait for him to pass by outside the clubhouse after the games. Her room was a virtual shrine to Waitkus and she ultimately decided that if she couldn’t have him, nobody could.
Amazingly, though he didn’t play again in ‘49, he returned to action in 1950 and that year batted .284/.341/.359 with 102 runs scored. He helped the Phillies win the NL pennant and got some downballot MVP votes. He played five more seasons for the Phillies
The shooting of Waitkus is said to have inspired author Bernard Malamud to write the novel The Natural, which was made into a film starring Robert Redford and Glenn Close.
Both teams got some value out of the trade.
There weren’t any disastrous deals in 1948, but neither did any help the team too much. Going to give these a C grade.