One quite significant deal was made in this calendar year.
The Cubs lost 90 games in 1948. It was the first 90-loss season in franchise history.
They did make a couple of trades in December ‘48 that we’ll examine in the next installment of this series.
Apart from that, there wasn’t much done to try to improve the team, but one of these trades paid dividends for the Cubs for several seasons.
May 16: Acquired Bob Ramazzotti from the Dodgers for Hank Schenz
Schenz, an infielder, had played in parts of the last four seasons for the Cubs and batted .258/.306/.316 with one home run in 116 games. He never played a game for the Dodgers, as he played for their Triple-A team the rest of 1949 and then they sent him to the Pirates for cash considerations after the season.
That tells you the sorts of players the Cubs were using in this time frame — many guys who were really no better than Triple-A level of talent.
Ramazzotti, also an infielder, played as mostly a backup for the next four and a half seasons for the Cubs, batting .236/.275/.299 with three home runs and 15 stolen bases in 275 games. I mention the steals because, well, back in that time that was a lot of steals! Despite playing in only 65 games for the Cubs in 1949, Ramazzotti’s nine steals were second on the team (to Hal Jeffcoat).
By the end of 1953 Ramazzotti was 36 and had played only sparingly due to multiple injuries. The Cubs assigned him to their minor league club in Los Angeles. He wound up playing a handful of games that year for the Havana Sugar Kings, then retired.
The Cubs wound up with -1.1 bWAR from Ramazzotti, so… another deal that did basically nothing for the club.
June 15: Acquired Frank Baumholtz and Hank Sauer from the Reds for Peanuts Lowrey and Harry Walker
Sauer became one of the most popular Cubs players of his time. He had been a decent power hitter with the Reds in 1947 and 1948, but his numbers had declined beginning the ‘49 season and so the Reds made him available.
Even though he was in his early 30s when the Cubs got him, he immediately started hitting home runs for them, 27 in just 96 games in 1949, then 32 and 30 the next two years.
It was 1952 when he had his best season — at age 35, Sauer batted .270/.361/.531 and led the NL with 37 home runs and 121 RBI. He was named NL MVP in a close vote over Robin Roberts of the Phillies. The Cubs contended briefly and finished 77-77, their only non-losing season between 1947 and 1962. If only they’d kept Andy Pafko, who they had traded the year before, they might have put together enough offense to finish over .500.
Predictably at his age, Sauer’s numbers began to slide, though he did manage a career high 41 home runs in 1954, the first 40-plus homer season for a Cub since Hack Wilson’s 56 in 1930.
Eventually, Sauer was traded away, probably at the right time, though he did have a 26-homer season for the Giants at age 40 in 1957. It’s one of only nine seasons in MLB history with that many home runs or more, for a player age 40 or older.
All told, Sauer posted 18.9 bWAR in six and a half seasons as a Cub.
Baumholtz became a regular outfielder in Chicago after the deal, playing right field and center field. He got demoted to the minors in 1950, but came back in 1951 and retained that position for five seasons, overall batting .295/.345/.394 in 635 games and posting 6.6 bWAR.
In 1953, when the Cubs acquired Ralph Kiner, Baumholtz played mostly center field, with Kiner in left and Sauer in right. This provided some humor, as noted in Baumholtz’ SABR biography:
He spent more time in center field than he had in recent years, and was flanked by Sauer and Ralph Kiner, neither of whom was getting paid for his work with the leather. Chicago’s defensive alignment became a favorite talking point of sportswriters of the time and the legend of poor Frankie in perpetual motion around the Wrigley Field grass would persist for decades.
A chance hotel encounter with a Chicago Tribune reporter in 1969 led to a newsman’s throwaway line about how playing between the two sluggers drove Baumholtz out of baseball, though Baumholtz defended his pal Sauer’s fielding. Seventeen years later, he gave the same newspaper almost the same quote on the matter: “People always kid me about the way I had to run my legs off making catches for Kiner or Sauer, but it wasn’t that tough. When Sauer played left field, he was a pretty good outfielder.”
After 1955 the Cubs sent Baumholtz to the Phillies for cash considerations
Lowrey, who had played well for the Cubs for several seasons, was part of the 1945 NL pennant winners, and got some downballot MVP votes that year. Oddly enough, this appears to be a case of trading the player at the right time. Lowrey was 31 in 1949 and was never quite as good for other teams, drifting from the Reds to the Cardinals to the Pirates. You might remember him as a longtime coach for the Cubs (1970-71 and 1977-81), as well as several other teams.
Walker, who played part of just one season with the Cubs, later managed in the majors for nine seasons with the Cardinals, Pirates and Astros. His playing career, though, was more or less over after this trade.
This was a very good deal for the Cubs, perhaps their best of the postwar era through about 1960.
August 4: Acquired Bobby Rhawn and cash from the White Sox for Johnny Ostrowski
Both players were on minor-league rosters for the clubs at the time of the deal. Ostrowski hadn’t played in the majors since 1946, when he batted .213/.300/.319 in 64 games for the Cubs. He played briefly for the White Sox in 1949 and 1950 (71 games, -0.2 bWAR), then was traded to the Senators.
Rhawn was assigned to the Cubs top farm club in Los Angeles, where he played the rest of the year. His trail goes cold after that; he played in the minors from 1950-52 but it’s not clear how the Cubs assigned his contract somewhere.
In any case, this was another “why bother” trade.
December 14: Acquired Bill Voiselle from the Braves for Gene Mauch and cash.
In two years and 125 games for the Cubs in 1948 and 1949, Mauch batted .226/.334/.306. He later, of course, became famous for being a longtime MLB manager, especially for the collapses his teams had (1964 Phillies in the pennant race, 1986 Angels in the ALCS). Mauch ranks 15th all-time on the managerial win list with 1,902. He’s the only manager to win that many games while never managing his team in the World Series.
Voiselle is yet another player who had good years when young, two very good seasons with the Giants in 1945 and 1946, as well as pitching for the Braves in the 1948 World Series, and the Cubs later got him hoping he’d be that good again. He pitched in just 19 games for the Cubs in 1950, posted a 5.79 ERA, and after the season they sent him to the Dodgers for cash considerations. He pitched in the minors until 1957.
Neither team got much in this trade, as seemed to be the case for so many Cubs deals in that era, so let me finish with a story. Voiselle wore No. 96 for the Cubs. It was the highest number worn by any Cub until Todd Hundley took No. 99 to start the 2001 season. Most baseball players didn’t wear numbers like this back then. Voiselle did because his hometown was Ninety Six, South Carolina. No one seems to know exactly why this town got that unusual name, though here’s one thought on the topic.
The Sauer deal, a very good one, gives the 1949 Cubs trades a B- grade.