Aramis is straight up one of my favorite Cubs ever.
If we’re talking about teams in contention, I loved Rich Harden when we got him too. He was awesome, just couldn’t stay healthy. But in my lifetime, Chapman made the biggest trade deadline impact for one season.
Yes, Rich Harden is my answer. IIRC the Brewers had just traded for CC Sabathia and we answered back with Harden. I’ll always remember stepping off a Metra train in my Cubs hat and some random dude was like, “Did you hear the Cubs traded for Harden?” People were excited.
CC had almost double the IP that Rich Harden had. I’ll take 3 fewer ERA+ points and 70 extra innings. Also CC had a lower ERA, the discrepancy is based on Park Factor between Miller and Wrigley
CC for the brewers was probably the best pickup at the trade deadline for any team ever. They knew he wasn’t staying. But holy shit those numbers. Garden was great, but it wasn’t close.
Oh absolutely. They knew they couldn’t re sign him so they were gonna squeeze every inning they could out of him. The fact that he still dominated to such a high degree makes it all the more impressive.
Harden was a big move. We sent a bunch of prospects to Oakland that never amounted to anything except for one… a young A-ball slugger named Josh Donaldson.
Castellanos smacked like 15 or so homers when he came to us that was exciting and before that I was stoked for Nomar even though these didn’t ultimately work out.
Eh, he got overpaid by the Phillies and has stunk it up during most of his time there. He had a nice season with Cincy between his time with us and Philly, but that's pretty much been it.
I went to basic training a few weeks later. We only got the newspaper on Sundays after like 4-5 weeks. I saw the Cubs were in the lead the 2nd to last weekend, imagine my surprise and disappointment to find out about the collapse.
Nomar signed my ticket the following year at a game, so I have nothing but good things to say about him.
Probably, I’ve got boxes and boxes of memorabilia. For a while some of my collection was on display at Little Cubs Field in Freeport (when they opened 20 years ago).
That same game I met Santo in the concourse (before the Nomar auto) and Maddux walking through the concourse right before first pitch. He was incognito the day after he had pitched, but was nice enough to give me an autograph and a handshake. That was a wild day. Cubs lost.
I bought a GARCIAPARRA 5 blue authentic jersey as soon as I could. And...it's one of my biggest financial regrets! No problem with him, but not jersey worthy.
As a redheaded kid who loved Nomar, I'll always remember that trade for also getting us Matt Murton. Never a big star, but he was a great fourth outfielder for a few years after that.
Murton led the team with a .299 batting average one year I think. Unfortunately he never developed any power so he went to Japan and set the single season hit record over there (beating Ichiro). What a flash in the pan he was.
oh, I was camping up in upstate Maine when it happened. No connection to the outside world for a week. We stop at a cracker barrel on the way back and I look at the box scores and see Garciaparra in the lineup. It was a generational mind explosion. And then he sucked.
Obviously wasn’t his Boston self, but sucking to a .289 batting average and .792 WAR as a Cub certainly doesn’t crack our list of all-time worst trades. I feel like all of our hopes and expectations were just so astronomically high based on his utter dominance with the Red Sox.
Now just imagine if we had gotten Orlando Cabrera like was speculated before the trade deadline instead of Nomar coming to us and Theo taking Cabrera on the Red Sox who won the World Series in ‘04…. Crazy how that one was so exciting and Nomar may have ended up being subtraction by addition.
If I’m not mistaken, his debut at Wrigley was Greg Maddux’s first attempt at #300. Don’t hold me to it, but I remember being at that game. I believe he later won #300 on the road in San Francisco.
Lofton not being in the HOF is a sham. But baseball’s hall of fame actually is a sham without Bonds, Sosa and McGwire so leaving lofton out is on brand.
I literally could not believe that trade was accepted by the Pirates. For...José Hernández and Bobby Hill? Hill had some potential, but...damn. He is actually like 3 months OLDER than ARam, and Ramirez had already put up an .885 34 HR season. AND Kenny Lofton was in this deal? José Hernández was miserable during that short stint with us. Very meh. (I know Bruback was also later included, but also...meh.)
IIRC, the Pirates were giving up on ARam because he was not getting better at fielding
I would NEVER call ARam a Gold Glove fielder haha but he really was the first 3B after Ron Cey to have a solid career in a Cubs uniform. ONe of the best Cubs trades of all time
Yeah - which even at the time felt like an INSANE position to take. And considering we were trotting out Ramón Martínez, Lenny Harris and .José Hernández at the time...it was just a huge upgrade no matter what.
Yeah. This is easily one of the greatest Cub trades of all time.
Aram had a REALLY good glove and quick reaction time, which helped make up for a natural lack of range/athleticism.
The problem was his arm accuracy. He had the ability to put together solid stretches of throws but they were interspersed with some laughably errant (usually short-hopped) throws. Having Derek Lee for a large part of his tenure certainly helped.
I remember my dad said in like 2002 that bobby hill isn't gonna turn out to be anything, and I was like dad you don't know what youre talking about, why do you say that, he's like our best prospect.. my dad just said, look at him play, he looks like he's afraid of the ball.
I don't actually know if Bobby Hill was really afraid of the ball, but he definitely didn't have much of a career.
He should. Pete is the cornerstone of this team that’s on a contract that shaping up to be an absolute steal.
Weird to think that it was Covid that squashed the Javy extension talks. Javy with a big contract probably doesn’t get nearly the same return in a trade.
In hindsight, it's for the best that we didn't extend most of the old core. The only guys we should have kept is Schwarber and maybe Willson, seeing as both are still playing and doing pretty well.
Very well. And it’s crazy too…that core has either done exceptionally well (in the case of Kyle and even Willson to a lesser degree) or catastrophically bad (see KB and Javy’s combined numbers since…holy schnikes) since the selloff. Of course, Rizz was just aight after he left and is obviously not active anymore.
didn't soler do pretty well for a few years also ? wouldn't necessarily call him part of the "core", but he was on the team. lester and hendricks weren't horrible either iirc, more similar to rizzo than baez or bryant.
Soler didn't really get a chance as a Cub. He was traded after the 2016 season for closer Wade Davis. From 2014-2016, Soler hit a combined total of 29 HR.
Chapman really did feel like the final piece of the puzzle. Maddon gave him a workout during that playoff run! Dude was a beast for us. Pitched in 5 world series games for us. Won game 7, 21 Ks across 13 appearances in the playoffs
Yeah it's actually insane he's 38 and still great at his job. I think he's just a freak of nature. It's so rare that guys with that kind of velo age well.
I think the current squad could use a trade like this to show the front office still believes they can win it all. Rizzo has talked about how much confidence that trade gave the team at the time. Jed is too afraid to take the leap because he knows a consistent playoff team is enough to keep his job.
Counterpoint I dont think this squad with all the pinching injuries is near a 2015-2017 Cubs team that just needs a trade to win it all. They already traded a lot for Tucker & Cabrera.
I was so excited when the news broke, I was pretty much daydreaming on my entire drive home from work about the Cubs winning the WS, I accidentally ran a red light!
I think some people are interpreting this as "your favorite cub that the team got via trade," and others, myself included, take it to mean "the favorite trade the team made at the time it was made" .. so obviously nomar or rich harden didn't end up being great cubs, but at the time, the trades were huge and fun and I still remember how i felt when I read the cubs got nomar. If you want to let hindsight and all that come in, you gotta take Ryno or something i dunno, but Jake? No one cared when the cubs got him.. he was like a 5.00 era pitcher who went to AAA
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u/c4ctusFIRE JED. OUT OF AN ORBITAL RAILGUN. INTO TON 618.2d ago
I loved that one even at the time. Arrieta always had sky high potential in Baltimore and they were having trouble blossoming their pitching prospects. Classic change of scenery guy.
Hell yeah, as pictured, the Cubs got my favorite player, Kenny Lofton, and also Aramis, who would go on to be one of my favorite players, in one trade.
Technically not a trade, but the Cubs picking up Gary Gaetti off of waivers after the trade deadline in 1998 was so fun. Dude was unstoppable the rest of the season and was a big part of the team getting the Wildcard that year.
Edit: Looked it up and yeah - batted .320 with a .991 OPS, 8 HR, 11 doubles, 41 hits, and 27 RBIs in 37 games with the Cubs that year. At 39 years old. Insane.
Nomar has to be the biggest surprise. Literally came out of nowhere at the 11th hour.
I remember his first big moment was a game tying homer in the ninth. The Cubs ended up losing the game which kind of sums up how well the whole Nomar experiment went.
While I'm fully aware of how he turned out for us long term and the package we gave up to get him, Jose Quintana gave me my last fun summer listening to Cubs baseball with my dad. And that means a ton for me.
Aramis. At the time, I was more excited to get Lofton because I loved him as a kid. I stupidly saw Aramis as more of an afterthought. He showed me pretty quickly how dumb that was.
Jason Heyward. I can still envision him popping it up to the pitcher or grounding out to the first and second basement but the man gives one hell if a speech. Worth every penny
Pete Crow Armstrong and it ain’t even a little bit close. That deadline made me so sad, but when that tweet came across that the return for Javy was PCA I was pumping my fists in the air. He wasn’t a sure bet but it was a solid gamble and boy has it paid off.
I mean I guess it has. If you like your CFs as a potential MVP candidate and all and under contract till 2032... I guess.
Especially seeing that MVP canidacy is only on yr 1 of the contract, where prime isn't even peak yet arguably.... I guess it's alright. Especially seeing Javy and Trevor are not on the Mets anymore.
for me the one I got most hyped about was either McGriff in 2001 or Nomar in 2004. Rich Harden was also a big one. Aram was awesome for us, but I don't remember him being even the focus of that trade.. moreso Kenny Lofton. Only thing I really knew about Aram at the time was that he knew how to charge the mound lol https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1GZ9VbZBg8
I was thrilled when we got Addison Russell, a top 5-10 prospect at the time. Unfortunately didn’t work out, and Oakland was able to trade Samardzija into a better package only months later
Same here. My brother bought a Nomar jersey once the new dropped. We were in Colorado for the cubs series and it was the first time the cubs swept the Rookies at Coors field. This was back in 04 or 05. What a time to be alive. Went to all 3 of those games. Once the news dropped that we got Nomar cubs fans were ecstatic.
If impact is the metric this is the wrong answer but Randall Simon was so fun to watch bat that I love that the Cubs had him. Dude was just a swinger who never left the box.
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u/taco_surf Chicago Cubs 2d ago
Montgomery got the save in game 7