The Cubs made very few deals this year.
The Cubs had come off of a couple of really bad seasons — 90+ losses — in 1956 and 1957. About all they had going for them was Ernie Banks, who would become league MVP in ‘58.
They didn’t do much to help Banks by trade, anyway, in this year.
April 3: Acquired Bobby Thomson from the Giants for Bob Speake
Speake had burst on the scene for the Cubs in 1955, batting .304/.393/.717 with 10 home runs in his first 102 plate appearances for the team.
That didn’t last, as he wound up batting just .218/.300/.429 with 12 home runs in 294 PA for the entire season.
After another mediocre year in ‘57, the Cubs shipped him to the Giants for “Shot Heard ‘Round The World” hitter Bobby Thomson, who, like so many players the Cubs acquired in the 1950s, had several good years earlier in his career but was on the downside once the Cubs acquired him at age 34.
Thomson did manage a pretty good year in ‘58, batting .283/.351/.466 with 21 home runs, a 3.1 bWAR season. Speake did little for the Giants, so this deal was definitely a win.
May 8: Acquired Hersh Freeman from the Redlegs for Turk Lown
The Reds were known as “Redlegs” from 1953-58 because of the connotations of “Reds” during the 1950s.
Freeman pitched in just nine games for the Cubs with an 8.31 ERA.
Lown, meanwhile, had been a very good reliever for the Cubs in both 1956 and 1957, but after a couple of bad games early in ‘58 the Cubs gave up on him, figuring he was done at age 34.
He wasn’t. Lown lasted only a few weeks in Cincinnati before he was waived. The White Sox picked him up and he pitched well for them for five years, leading the AL in saves in ‘59, when he pitched for the Sox in the World Series.
Keeping Lown would have been the better choice.
May 20: Acquired Al Dark from the Cardinals for Jim Brosnan
Again, a case of acquiring a player (Dark) long after his good years, which were for the Braves and Giants from 1948-54. He wound up in three World Series in that span, was NL Rookie of the Year in ‘48 and got MVP votes in five different seasons. By the time the Cubs got him, he was 36 and just about done.
So why did the Cubs give up on Brosnan, who had pitched reasonably well for them and who was their Opening Day starter in 1958? Brosnan’s SABR biography suggests a reason:
Years later, Brosnan asked Don Osborn, who had been his manager at two minor league stops, why he had stuck with him for so long despite years of disappointment. Osborn told him the Cubs knew he had a great arm, but were less sure of his head and his heart. “He was right,” Brosnan admitted. “I wasn’t driven to be a professional baseball player. By 1958 I began to hate to lose at pitching; I hated it even when somebody got a hit off me. The competitive urge finally came to me, but when it came I was already in the big leagues.”
Brosnan had begun writing about this time and not long after the trade, had an article published in Sports Illustrated, a big deal at the time. Later, his book The Long Season became a best-seller, one of the first first-person accounts of life in the major leagues.
Brosnan didn’t last long in St. Louis, but when he was traded to the Reds (no longer “Redlegs”) in 1959, that “competitive urge” must have come to him because he had several good years for them, pitching in the World Series in 1961 and getting MVP votes that year.
Whether Cubs management back then could have accepted this sort of player is unknown, but seems unlikely. Still, they sent real talent away and got little in return.
June 16: Acquired Dave Melton from the Athletics for Freddy Rodriguez
Melton never played for the Cubs, eventually winding up back in the A’s system the following year.
Rodriguez, who pitched in seven games for the Cubs with a 7.36 ERA, never played for the A’s, eventually winding up with the Phillies for one game in 1959.
I nominate this for “Most Meaningless Cubs Trade of All Time.”
Overall, these trades gave away talent and didn’t get much in return, other than Thomson. I’ll give them a D+ for that.