Is This the Worst Cubs Lineup Ever?
No, not this year’s. This one. We were having a conversation in the Shoutbox yesterday, and Section 242 was telling a story about a bachelor party he attended during which former Bull Jason Williams appeared and received a lap dance in front of his hot girlfriend. Anyhow, as part of the bachelor party, Section 242 attended that game.
Check out this absolute turd of a lineup.
Chicago Cubs AB R H RBI BB SO BA OPS Pit PO A Details
B Hill 2B 5 1 2 1 0 1 .247 .675 17 0 2 SB
M Bellhorn 3B 4 1 1 1 0 1 .259 .890 24 0 0
S Sosa RF 3 0 0 0 1 1 .288 .989 18 1 0
H Choi 1B 4 1 1 2 0 1 .188 .597 17 8 0 HR
R Brown LF 2 0 0 0 1 1 .212 .615 13 2 0
A Alfonseca P 0 0 0 0 0 0 .667 1.334 0 0
M Alou PH 1 0 0 0 0 0 .275 .758 2 0 0
J Cruz P 0 0 0 0 0 0 .143 .286 0 0
C Patterson CF 3 0 0 0 0 1 .253 .676 8 2 0
A Echevarria PH 1 1 1 0 0 0 .298 .803 2 0 0
A Gonzalez SS 3 0 0 0 0 1 .250 .742 10 1 4 SH
T Hundley C 4 0 2 1 0 0 .211 .722 18 12 0
P Mahomes PR 0 1 0 0 0 0 .000 .000 0 0
A Benes P 1 0 0 0 0 1 .077 .220 5 0 0
C Stynes PH 1 0 0 0 0 0 .241 .688 1 0 0
C Hermansen LF 0 0 0 0 2 0 .210 .662 13 1 0
Totals 32 5 7 5 4 8 148 27 6
I’ve never managed in the Major Leagues, but I would suspect that a manager would never want to construct a lineup in which Antonio Alfonseca is the best hitter, and he doesn’t even get an at-bat. That box score looks eerily similar to my List of People I’d Like to Drown in a Public Toilet.
You have two of the top 3 Bottom 126ers in Hundley and Gonzalez (also, #6, Patterson). Roosevelt Brown. Angel Echevarria. Chris Stynes. Chad Hermansen. With the added bonus of colossal busts like Bobby Hill and Hee Seop Choi. Not to mention that you actually have to try pretty damn hard to get to a point in a game where you have 40 players on your bench and you somehow have to use Pat Mahomes as a pinch runner. I don’t know how Section 242 didn’t drink himself to death that day.
Later in the conversation, PenFoe may have found the greatest assemblage of horrendous Cubs pitching on display in one game. Feast your eyes on this Dusty Baker debacle.
Chicago Cubs IP H R ER BB SO HR ERA BF Pit-Str Ct·Sw·Lk GB·FB·LD· ? GmSc IR-IS LevI WPA
J Mateo 1.2 4 7 7 4 1 2 5.32 13 65-37 30· 2· 5 1· 6· 1· 0 16 - 0.81 -0.39
L Walrond 1.1 1 1 1 0 1 1 7.20 5 16-10 5· 3· 2 3· 1· 0· 0 0-0 0.08 -0.01
A Guzman 2 0 0 0 2 2 0 7.39 8 36-20 12· 4· 4 3· 1· 0· 0 0-0 0.07 0.01
D Aardsma 2 1 0 0 1 4 0 4.13 8 43-29 16· 7· 6 0· 2· 1· 0 0-0 0.07 0.01
M Wuertz 1 1 1 1 0 0 1 2.66 4 15-8 5· 1· 2 2· 2· 0· 0 0-0 0.31 -0.05
R Dempster 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 4.86 3 8-6 3· 0· 3 2· 1· 0· 0 0-0 0.57 0.04
B Howry 1 1 0 0 0 2 0 3.09 4 19-10 6· 2· 2 1· 0· 1· 0 0-0 3.41 0.15
R Novoa 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 4.26 3 15-8 6· 0· 2 1· 2· 0· 0 0-0 1.89 0.15
W Ohman 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 4.13 5 26-17 10· 1· 6 2· 1· 0· 0 0-0 3.42 0.15
J Ryu, L (0-1) 2 3 2 2 2 3 0 8.40 11 43-22 11· 8· 3 3· 2· 1· 0 0-0 3.29 -0.25
Totals 14 11 11 11 10 14 4 64 286-167 104·28·35 18·18· 4· 0 -
Other than Wuertz and (late-season) Howry, is there anyone on that list against whom you think you wouldn’t go 8-8? So, rack your brains, guys. A little Friday homework for you. Can anyone find a worse collection of hitters or a more comical display of Cub pitching “depth” than those two?
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BigFlax
PenFoe
StPatrick
CT
CactusMcHarris
Wow. I think I just threw up a little reading that. Angel Echevarria. Now there’s name I haven’t heard in a long time. A long time.
And I’m still not over the whole Chris Stynes/Matt Stairs/Fred McGriff/Ron Coomer monster that replaced my childhood hero, Mark Grace at first base, so any time I see any of those names I get a little pissed. I think I watched more Diamondback games in 2001 than Cub games. Sure Gracie probably wanted a little more money than he was worth. So what. The Astros stuck with Biggio for his whole fucking career, but the Cubs couldn’t pony up for 3 more years of Mark Grace? Still irks me.
Having found this lineup, and worse, having to watch it, i am considering myself excused from this homework assignment.
This one is mighty awful
C Lezcano CF .205 .669
J Figueroa LF .253 .601
B Buckner 1B .324 .810
J Tracy RF .254 .728
B Hayes C .222 .555
M Tyson 2B .238 .610
S Dillard 3B .225 .601
M Kelleher SS .146 .394
D Capilla P .190 .476
L Biittner PH .249 .613
D Tidrow P .000 .000
It was the last day of a miserbale 1980 season. The one bright spot was that Buckner finished the game as the NL batting champion–of course the one listed in the entry had a future Hall of Famer in Sosa, so let’s call the presence of one bona fide player in each game a wash. Throw out Buckner in this one, and the highest BA is Jim Tracy’s .254. I think this one’s worse.
How about the worst lineup to ever contain two Hall of Famers? June 20th, 1990 vs. Montreal
Chicago Cubs AB R H RBI BB SO BA OPS Pit PO A Details
G Varsho RF 4 1 1 0 0 0 .250 .500 0 2 0
D Ramos 3B 2 0 0 0 0 1 .243 .638 0 0 1 SH
R Sandberg PH-2B 1 0 0 0 0 0 .336 .982 0 0 0
M Grace 1B 4 0 2 1 0 0 .283 .701 0 11 0 SB,CS
D Clark LF 4 0 0 0 0 2 .200 .565 0 3 0 SB
L Lancaster P 0 0 0 0 0 0 .077 .220 0 0
M Wynne CF 3 0 0 0 1 1 .143 .495 0 1 0 IW
C Wilkerson 2B-3B 3 1 1 0 0 0 .260 .578 0 3 5
D Smith PH 1 0 0 0 0 0 .265 .713 0 0 0
S Dunston SS 4 0 0 0 0 1 .306 .799 0 1 2
J Girardi C 3 0 1 1 0 0 .283 .708 0 3 0
G Maddux P 3 0 1 0 0 1 .065 .159 0 0 3
P Assenmacher P 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000 .000 0 0
D Dascenzo LF 0 0 0 0 0 0 .204 .600 0 0
The lack of identations make it seem like an 18 man lineup, but here is what the starting lineup was:
Varsho
Ramos
Grace
Clark
Wynne
Wilkerson
Dunston
Girardi
Maddux
This is cherry picking a bit from that terible ’87 team, but how about the days when the lineup was:
Handsome young bachelor Dave Martinez (Harry’s favorite description of him)
Jerry Mumphrey
Andre Dawson (should be in the HOF, one really bright spot in this fiasco)
Moreland (at third base!)
Manny Trillo (subbing for Bull Durham)
Paul Noce (scrappy before Eckstein scrapped scrappy back into vogue)
Mike Brumley
Sundberg (Only one vowel away from being a HOFer)
Tewksbury or Lynch, pick your poison
For bad, the alpha & omega for me is the Cub teams from 79-81. Mix & match however you want.
I contend that the lineup in the original post is still the worst ever.
None of these come close, guys. Come on. Seriously.
I know the posted lineup is bad, but it still features Sosa. Don’t worry I’ll find one.
Back in a moment.
Guys, check out 9/25/96 and 9/19/2000. Which is worse?
9/19/2000 is better in nearly all aspects than the lineup above.
EY over Hill, Gutierrez over AGonz, Grace over Choi, and Girardi over Hundley. By a mile.
9/25/96 is also better, it had Grace, Luis Gonzalez, Sandberg…come on, you gotta try harder than that.
Now…9/23/96, that might be worse:
B McRae CF
R Jennings RF
T Adams P
D Glanville LF
B Brown 1B
R Sandberg 2B
L Gonzalez LF
T Wendell P
B Patterson P
T Houston 3B
J Hernandez PR-3B
S Servais C
R Sanchez SS
S Trachsel P
S Bullett PH-RF
No, never mind, the ’02 squad is still the worst.
Okay, this is the all-time winner.
2nd game of a double-header in ’96. Basically the same lineup as above if you remove Grace, Sandberg and Gonzalez and replace them with Brant Brown, Todd Haney and Scott Bullet.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CHN/CHN199609272.shtml
Starting Lineup:
CF Doug Glanville
LF Scott Bullett
1B Brant Brown
3B Leo Gomez (batting cleanup!)
RF Robin Jennings
C Tyler Houston
SS Jose Hernandez
2B Todd Haney
P Mike Campbell
Note: The Cubs won 10-9 on a wild pitch in the bottom of the 9th.
For the entirety of my life, I had always assumed the 79-81 Cubs were the epitome of suck. Then I saw the 2002 squad. Holy crap, were they awful.
I had that pleasure that season of sitting through the September game, in my Cubs jersey, at the original Urinal Cake where Benes and some other bullpen heroes combined to cough up an 11-run third inning to the Cards. The worst part about it is the Cubs were so pathetic that I didn’t even get any crap from the Satanic Fowl fans, just pity.
I was sitting in RF, and I unloaded the mightiest stream of invective and cursing I could muster at Sosa when he completely dogged a routine fly ball to the warning track, allowing three runs to score after the Cubs had already given up seven in the frame. I think I scared the meth-heads seated around me.
That’s a good one PenFoe.
People forget about that 96 team, for all you youngsters: Luis Gonzalez was NOT good with the Chicago Cubs. You can’t count him in there. Ryne Sandberg wasn’t Ryne Sandberg.
And if Mark Grace isn’t the most overappreciated Cub in history, I’m not sure who else is.
Sammy Sosa was still good in 2002. You can’t take one of the best hitters in the game at the time, and put him in a lineup, and then call it the worst. That ’96 lineup beats the ’02 lineup by a mile. Mark Bellhorn hit 28 home runs in ’02. People seem to forget that. Oh yeah, he also sucked. I know. Just saying. The ’96 lineup has a decent Doug Glanville, and that’s it.
The lineup in 2002 was so god awful bad. I struggle to even comprehend how a major league roster could be this horrendous. Ugh… I don’t want to think about it ever again.
I mean, how did we find the energy to get up in the morning when Todd Hundly, Mark Bellhorne and Bobby Hill were regulars?
Incidentally, the game when Bellhorn hit a home run from each side of the plate was probably the highlight of that season. Fuck him and everyone else in that shitty lineup.
BK, you said it was Dustin Hermanson. It was Chad Hermanson who the Cubs picked up from the Pirates that year for I forgot. He then got traded with Todd Hundley to the Dodgers for Grudzielanek and Karros.
Dur. Of course. Dustin was the shitty pitcher on the South Side. Chad was the shitty hitter up north.
That’s not the same C.Patterson that is playing for Johnny Baker in Cincy, right?
right???
Wow. I don’t see any way of topping that one. The fact that it’s the second game of a double header (and a late September one at that) is slightly mitigating, but woof. And it wasn’t just the starters. How about defensive replacement Terry Shumpert and pinch-hitters Brooks Kieschnick and Ozzie Timmons? (To be fair, Grace and Luis Gonzalez also pinch-hit.) How about the bullpen, with appearances from Jim Bullinger, Kent Bottenfield (pre-his one good year as a starter with St. Louis; I’d forgotten we’d even had him), Turk Wendell and Terry Adams? Not to mention Rodney “Not to be Confused with Randy” Myers. Ye gods. I’m more than a little glad I grew up watching this team from afar.
Just to put the icing on the cake in that game, Jason Kendall went 2-4 with a triple.
Grace didn’t have much power for a first baseman (173 career homers in 16 seasons), but his career OBP was .383, and .386 with the Cubs – only Cap Anson and Stan Hack had a better Cubs OBP in as many or more PAs as Grace had. He also walked more than 400 times more than he struck out in his career. Until this year, it’s been a while since we’ve had that kind of player on the team.
But, yeah, I mean, he was never the best player on the Cubs in the final analysis; it was either Sandberg or Sosa for pretty much the entirety of Grace’s run.
Doesn’t the Worst Lineup Ever have to result in a game that the Cubs lost? Especially in extra innings?
I see a lot of ex-Padres in those Lineups of Suck. You’d be somewhat comforted by the fact that for many of those years, particularly late 80s-early 90s, the Padres were not unlike the Cubs of the same period, only on the West Coast. I could not believe the ways they found to lose games. I remember Chris Brown (who we got for Kevin Mitchell in a trade with SF, I think, before Mitchell had his MVP year) tripping on a foul line and going on the DL for a month.
I’m not really sure what the lineups would have looked like, but I imagine this Pre-Banks, post-Good Pafko team has some awful ones.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/CHC/1951.shtml
Reading these comments and seeing those lineups makes me want to scoop out my eyes with a melon baller.