Even more evidence of how poorly run the team was back then.
The 1969 Cubs are a fabled team, perhaps the most loved group of players in MLB history that never won anything. They had four core players who became Hall of Famers — Ernie Banks, Billy Williams, Ron Santo and Fergie Jenkins — and several others who had All-Star seasons and were well-loved.
The reasons they didn’t win that year — or any year — have been well-documented and it’s not my purpose here to rehash that.
What I am going to do in this article is show you how general manager John Holland, who took over that position in 1957, made some deals — and didn’t make others — that took away players who might have helped the team get over the hump in the late 1960s or early 1970s.
Tony Taylor
Taylor had originally been signed by the New York Giants in 1954 out of Cuba, at a time when Cuban players were beginning to make a mark in MLB.
The Cubs selected him in the Rule 5 Draft in 1957.
Installed as the team’s second baseman in 1958 at age 22, he had a decent season, batting .235/.299/.314 with 21 stolen bases. That might not sound great now, but at the time the 21 steals were the most for any Cub since 1940 (Stan Hack).
Then Taylor put together a 2.7 bWAR season in 1959, batting .280/.331/.393 with 23 stolen bases, the most for a Cub since Augie Galan (23 in 1937). Just to give you an idea of how rare steals were for the Cubs back then, in the year before Taylor’s arrival, 1957, the entire team had 28 stolen bases. The stolen base revolution was beginning and the Cubs missed the train.
Taylor was batting .263/.337/.421 in 19 games in 1960 when the Cubs traded him and Cal Neeman to the Phillies for Don Cardwell and Ed Bouchee.
Sure, Cardwell immediately impressed with a no-hitter in his first start with the Cubs, but overall posted a 4.31 ERA in 111 games (93 starts) for the Cubs before he was sent to the Cardinals in the Larry Jackson/Lindy McDaniel deal in 1963. That one worked out okay for the Cubs. Bouchee, a mediocre defender at first base, had two middling seasons for the Cubs before the Mets took him in the expansion draft.
Taylor, meanwhile, played well at second base for the Phillies for a decade, posting 17.6 bWAR and getting MVP votes in 1963.
Had the Cubs kept Taylor, they would likely not have selected Glenn Beckert in what was called the “first-year draft” in 1962. Instead, another Red Sox prospect, Rico Petrocelli, was on their radar and might have been picked. Petrocelli, originally a shortstop who later moved to third base, likely would have been the Cubs’ starting shortstop for most of the 1960s. Petrocelli hit 40 home runs in 1969. Maybe Don Kessinger becomes the Cubs’ top utility player if that happens. Or gets traded.
None of that happened, of course, because the Cubs traded Taylor.
Bill Henry
The Cubs acquired Henry from the Red Sox in January 1957 for Frank Kellert, a backup first baseman who never played in the majors again after 1956.
That was a very good trade. Henry posted two very good years for the Cubs in 1958 and 1959, with 4.4 bWAR the latter year. He led the NL in games pitched and struck out 115 in 135⅓ innings, in an era when relievers weren’t expected to strike out lots of guys.
In December 1959 the Cubs traded Henry, Lou Jackson and Lee Walls to the Cincinnati Reds for “the other” Frank Thomas. Thomas had been a good power hitter in Pittsburgh for most of the 1950s, but was getting past his sell-by date by 1960. He batted .238/.280/.399 with 21 home runs and in early 1961 was traded to the Braves for no one you’ve ever heard of.
Meanwhile, Henry made the All-Star team in Cincinnati in 1960 and was a key contributor to their NL pennant team in 1961. While he was pretty much done by 1969, he might have helped the 1963 Cubs — who finished over .500 — do better. In any case, they let go a useful reliever and got pretty much nothing in return.
Jim Brewer
Famously, Brewer got into a fight with Billy Martin, then with the Reds, in 1960. You can read details here. The Cubs and Brewer eventually sued Martin for over $1 million — big money back then! — but it was settled out-of-court for $10,000 in 1968.
Brewer, who the Cubs had signed out of high school in 1958, had four mediocre seasons for the Cubs (5.66 ERA) before they traded him to the Dodgers, with Cuno Barragan, for Dick Scott.
This was a ridiculous deal even before you know that Brewer did so well with the Dodgers. Scott was a 30-year-old journeyman who had pitched in eight minor league seasons without a callup until 1963, when he was 30. He pitched poorly in nine games for the Dodgers that year and three more for the Cubs in 1964 and that’s all I can tell you about him except that he died in 2020, aged 86.
Meanwhile, Brewer pitched for the Dodgers for 12 seasons, becoming one of their most reliable relievers. He made one All-Star team, pitched in three World Series for them and posted 126 saves.
That would have been useful on the 1969 Cubs.
Larry Dierker
Now, you might be saying, “Why Dierker? He never played for the Cubs.”
And yet, he could have. Cubs amateur scouts had their eye on him as a college pitcher at UC Santa Barbara. In that pre-draft era, they offered him $35,000. Dierker wanted $50,000. He’d have been worth it, but penurious P.K. Wrigley refused, and so Dierker signed with Houston, where he would go on to pitch 13 seasons with a 3.38 ERA and 25 shutouts.
In 1969, Dierker was a 22-year-old 20-game winner with a 2.33 ERA, 20 complete games and four shutouts, which got him an All-Star nod and 23rd place in MVP voting. That was an 8.7 bWAR season — better than any 1969 Cub (Bill Hands led the team with 8.4 and Fergie Jenkins had 7.2).
Dierker would have looked real good in the Cubs rotation in 1969.
There are others, but you get the idea. Moves made and not made in the 1960s took some real talent away from the late 1960s Cubs. Those teams, particularly the 1969 team, were talented.
If they’d had better management, they might have become a dynasty.