The All-Time Greatest Cubs Killers
After Carlos Lee beat up the Cubbies again this weekend with a 5 for 12 series, a homer and couple of RBI's (pretty low-key for him), I thought it would be interesting to take a look at some of the all-time biggest Cubs killers. So thanks to some of the wonderful tools over at Baseball Musings, I looked at which players had the highest all-time OPS while facing the Cubs with at least 350 Plate Appearances. Their database only goes back to 1957 as well. |
Player | G | AB | BA |
OBP |
SLG |
OPS |
HR |
RBI |
Frank Robinson |
180 | 636 |
.336 |
.436 |
.645 |
1.081 | 49 | 147 |
Willie Mays | 270 | 997 | .330 | .400 |
.631 | 1.031 | 72 | 207 |
Gary Sheffield |
93 | 318 |
.324 |
.462 |
.569 |
1.031 | 18 | 60 |
Adam Dunn | 100 | 344 |
.265 | .398 |
.602 | 1.000 | 33 | 61 |
Mike Schmidt | 269 | 971 | .292 |
.387 |
.598 |
.985 | 78 | 207 |
Carlos Lee | 81 | 316 | .313 | .373 |
.604 | .977 | 23 | 64 |
Hank Aaron | 285 | 1093 | .327 |
.379 |
.598 |
.977 | 75 | 215 |
Luis Gonzalez | 124 | 475 |
.324 |
.389 |
.587 |
.976 | 26 | 90 |
Dante Bichette | 85 | 357 |
.345 |
.387 |
.583 |
.970 | 19 | 81 |
Bill White | 189 | 658 |
.350 |
.393 |
.576 |
.969 | 30 | 128 |
Larry Walker | 135 |
484 |
.302 | .402 |
.548 |
.950 |
26 | 97 |
Jim Edmonds | 126 |
415 |
.270 |
.394 |
.554 |
.948 | 24 | 80 |
Albert Pujols | 114 | 420 |
.288 | .374 |
.571 |
.945 | 33 | 85 |
I would have put my money on Schmidt or Lee myself, but Robinson, Aaron and Mays were doing their damage before I was following baseball. Frank Robinson holds the top spot for OPS, but Schmidt, Aaron and Mays probably did the most overall damage. So who is it?
Well let me throw in one more name into the ring...notorious Cub killer Jeff Blauser. He only had 299 PA's against the Cubs in his career, but that's because the Cubs went and signed him in 1997 as a free agent, so he'd stop pummeling them. As with most things Cub, that didn't work out and Blauser put up OPS+ numbers of 69 and 96 in his two years as a Cub and promptly retired from baseball after 1999. But from 1987 to 1997, he put up a line of .351/.413/.611 against the Cubs with 15 HR's and 48 RBI's.
I've put up a poll below this where you can rank the top Cub killers and I'm eager to hear some others I might have missed in the comments.
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