The Last Dominant Team

January 2, 2006 by cubsnet

The Chicago Cubs have had 11 teams in their post-1900 history outscore their opponents by at least 150 runs during the season. In comparison, the New York Yankees have had 43. At the other end of the spectrum, the Cubs have had 7 teams outscored by at least 150 runs. So at least they have dominated more than they have been dominated. But if we look at the distribution of those teams along the baseball timeline, we discover something disturbing: All 7 dominated teams have existed post-1946; three during a particularly awful stretch from 1947 through 1953, the last coming in 1999, Jim Riggleman's final season as manager. The 11 dominant teams, on the other hand, all played pre-1946. The last dominant team was the 1945 NL Pennant winning team. The 1945 team was also the last team to ourscore its opponents by at least 200 runs (203). (The best team ever was the legendary 1906 team, which outscored its opponents by 324 runs.)

1945, of course, was a unique year. The final year of the Second World War saw many great players, including Ted Williams, Joe DiMaggio, and Stan Musial, finishing their tours of duty in the armed services. The year was so unique that the St. Louis Browns played one-armed outfielder Pete Gray (who still hit .218!) in 70 games, and yet finished 11 games above .500.¹ The Cubs, like everyone else, were playing in a league of reduced talent level (as dominant as they were, the Cubs had no Hall-of-Famers on their roster).

The 1945 team won with an above average offense and league leading pitching. They scored 4.74 runs per game while the league averaged 4.46 runs. They did so while hitting just 57 home runs, half the total of the league leading Giants and just one more than Hack Wilson hit all by himself during his great 1930 season. What the Cubs did do was get on base, finishing a close second with a .345 team OBA. First baseman and NL MVP Phil Cavaretta had the best year of his solid career, finishing second in the league with an adjusted OPS 33% above league average. Thirty-five-year-old third baseman and leadoff hitter Stan Hack gave it one last go (manager Charlie Grimm had coaxed him out of retirement the year before), hitting .323/.420/.405. Twenty-four-year-old centerfielder Andy Pafko jumpstarted his good career. Six of the seven full-time position players finished with an OBA at least 13 points above the .330 league average.

The hitting was good. The pitching and defense was great. The Cubs allowed a league low 3.43 runs per game, more than a run lower than the league average and .33 runs lower than the second-best St. Louis Cardinals. 8 Cubs' pitchers made at least 7 starts and all of them finished with an ERA lower than the ballpark adjusted league average of 3.65. Hank Wyse, the ultimate WWII-period star and post-WWII flameout, led the staff with 278.1 innnigs of 136 ERA+ ball. 36-year-old Claude Passeau had his last really good season in a good career, posting a 148 ERA+ in 227 innings. To give you an idea of the kind of "stuff" Wyse and Passeau were working with, there's this: neither of them struck out 100 batters in all those innings. The staff also received a big lift from Hank Borowy, whom the Cubs acquired mid-season from the Yankees in an unexpected waiver deal.³ According to BaseballLibrary.com, "Borowy, 10-5 with the Yankees, was put on waivers, apparently to solve a roster problem, and was passed over by all 7 AL teams who assumed the Yanks would pull him back if claimed. The Cubs snatch[ed] him for $97,500." Borowy ended up 11-2 with a 171 ERA+ in 122.1 innings for the Cubs.

Passeau and Wyse were involved in a bit of trivia. On June 2, 1945, Passeau held Braves Braves outfielder Tommy Holmes, who led the league with a 174 OPS+, hitless. Holmes then proceeded to hit safetly in 37 straight games, a modern National League record that held for 33 years until Pete Rose broke it with a 44 game hit streak. The pitcher who finally stopped Holmes was Wyse.²

The 1945 Cubs were, simply put, the best team in the major leagues that year. They faced the Detroit Tigers, who won 10 fewer games during the season, in the World Series. While the Tigers were not as dominant in the American League as the Cubs had been in the National League, they did have star talent in pitcher Hal Newhouser (25-9, 1.81 ERA) and first baseman Hank Greenberg (who had returned mid-season). Greenberg had been absent for four seasons, played just 78 games in 1945, and still finished 7th in the league with 13 home runs, posting a 167 OPS+.

The Cubs got off to a great start in the series, knocking Newhouser out early in Game 1 in Detroit, cruising to a 9-0 victory, with Borowy throwing the shutout. Cavaretta hit the Cubs' only homer of the series in the game. The offense disappeared in Game 2, as Wyse took the loss 4-1. But the Passeau threw one of the great World Series gems in Game 3, a one-hit, one-walk (and one strikeout) shutout. The Cubs then lost Game 4 before going back to Borowy in Game 5. Unfortunately, Borowy was knocked out by a 4-run Tigers' 6th inning, and the Tigers went on to win 8-4 to go up 3 games to 2, with Newhouser credited with the victory. Borowy redeemed himself in Game 6, however, which was played the very next day. He threw 4 shutout innings in relief (the 9th through 12th innings), as the Cubs won 8-7 in 12 innings. Hank Greenburg had tied the game at 7 in the 8th, with 2 outs, on a solo home run.

As a manager must do down 3 games to 2 in the World Series, Charlie Grimm had thrown everything into winning Game 6. Passeau pitched into the 7th (despite some uncharacteristic wildness), and then Grimm used Wyse, 19-game-winner Ray Prim, and Borowy in relief. That, unfortunately, left Grimm few options for Game 7, played 2 days after Game 6. The Tigers were bringing back Newhouser on two days rest. Wyse was the most rested, having thrown just two-thirds of an inning in Game 6. But Wyse had been ineffective, giving up 3 runs, following his having lost Game 2. The Cubs' 5th starter during the season, 38-year-old Paul Derringer (in his last year), had thrown 3.2 less than spectacular innings in relief in Games 4 and 5.

So, with the Cubs' 37-year world championship drought hanging in the balance, Grimm went back to Borowy. The Tigers' first three hitters singled in the top of the 1st before Grimm pulled Borowy and replaced him with Derringer. Derringer allowed a couple of walks (one intentional) and a double, and the Cubs found themselves down 5-0 before their half of the first inning. The Cubs never seriously threatened, Newhauser struck out 10, and the Cubs went down 9-3. A great season followed by an exciting World Series ended with an anti-climatic Game 7 blowout.

Despite losing the World Series, 1945 was so good to the Cubs that it spawned two future players who would play key roles on the team that for four-and-a-half months played the role of the next dominant Cubs team: Don Young and Ken Holtzman. In the end, of course, the 1969 team faltered as the Mets (may they forever be despised by Cubs fans) soared. So the 1945 Cubs remain the last dominant team, in a National League two years short of racial re-integration and depleted by World War II.

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Two recent books have been written about the Cubs' last dominant team: Wrigley Field's Last World Series by Charles N. Billington and The Cubs Win the Pennant! by John C. Skipper.

You can view the Cubs' top 20 teams, by run differential, here. You can view the Cubs' top 20 most dominated teams here.

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Footnotes:
¹ David Nemac et al, The Baseball Chronicle (2004), p. 233
² Id. at 232.
³ Id. at 235.

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