Cubs 100 Game Winners

Carlos Zambrano has joined an exclusive club of Cubs’ pitchers. 20 men have gone before him, and just three since 1960.

Carlos joins Greg Maddux, Fergie Jenkins and Rick Reuschel in the “during my lifetime” 100 Wins as a Cub Club. Fergie and Maddog have 31s draped from the foul polls, and it’s just a matter of time before Maddux joins Jenkins in Cooperstown. Rick Reuschel, well, he’s Mr. Underrated. More on that after the jump. First, the 100 game winners in Cubs franchise history.

Pitchers	Wins as Cub	Last Season as Cub
Fred Goldsmith	107	1880
Larry Corcoran	175	1885
John Clarkson	137	1887
Bill Hutchison	181	1895
Clark Griffith	152	1900
Jack Taylor	109	1907
Ed Reulbach	136	1913
Mordecai Brown	188	1916
Hippo Vaughn	151	1921
Pete Alexander	128	1926
Guy Bush	152	1934
Pat Malone	115	1934
Charley Root	201	1941
Lon Warneke	109	1945
Bill Lee	139	1947
Claude Passeau	124	1947
Bob Rush	110	1957
Fergie Jenkins	167	1983
Rick Reuschel	135	1984
Greg Maddux	133	2006

source

One of my favorite baseball stats is Wins Above Replacement, or WAR, which provides a way of comparing a player’s overall contributions (offense, fielding, throwing, running) and comparing careers. It’s also good for pitchers. Here are the the WAR values for the Cubs’ four most recent 100 game winners, as a Cub, and their career totals.

Maddux	IP	WAR	Jenkins	IP	WAR
1986	31	0.1	1966	182	3.3
1987	155.7	-0.5	1967	289.3	5.4
1988	249	5.1	1968	308	6.9
1989	238.3	5.1	1969	311.3	7.6
1990	237	3.9	1970	313	7
1991	263	3.4	1971	325	9.2
1992	268	8.4	1972	289.3	6.3
2004	212.7	2.8	1973	271	3.4
2005	225	2.3	1982	217.3	3.6
2006	136.3	0.8	1983	167.3	0.8
10 yrs.	2016	31.4	10 yrs.	2673.5	53.5
Career	5008.3	96.7	Career	4500.7	81.4

Reuschel	IP	WAR	Zambrano	IP	WAR
1972	129	2.9	2001	7.7	-0.9
1973	237	5.5	2002	108.3	1.2
1974	240.7	3.8	2003	214	4.6
1975	234	3.6	2004	209.7	5.5
1976	260	4.6	2005	223.3	5
1977	252	8.7	2006	214	4.2
1978	242.7	5.4	2007	216.3	2.9
1979	239	5.2	2008	188.7	3.2
1980	257	5.5	2009	49	1.1
1981	85.7	1.6	9 yrs.	1431	26.8
1983	20.7	0.3	Career	1431	26.8
1984	92.3	-0.3
12 yrs.	2290.1	46.8
Career	3548.3	66.3

Pitching WAR from Baseball Projection except Zambrano 2009, which is from FanGraphs (does not include Friday night’s start and are calculated differently than the historical WAR from Rally’s site).

A few facts about those WAR totals

Maddux is # 4 “all time”, from 1954 though 2008
Jenkins ranks 11
Reuschel is # 17
Yes, you read that right
Zambrano’s WAR/year is closest to Maddux’s (3ish)
Reuschel and Jenkins had better “average” years than Z and Maddog

Here’s the Top 20, from Rally’s site. The links will take you to each pitcher’s page.

Rank	Pitcher	WAR
1	Clemens, Roger	128.3
2	Seaver, Tom	105.4
3	Niekro, Phil	96.8
4	Maddux, Greg	96.7
5	Perry, Gaylord	96.3
6	Johnson, Randy	91.8
7	Blyleven, Bert	90.3
8	Gibson, Bob	85.5
9	Ryan, Nolan	84.8
10	Carlton, Steve	84.4
11	Jenkins, Fergie	81.4
12	Martinez, Pedro	75.2
13	Mussina, Mike	74.8
14	Sutton, Don	70.8
15	Schilling, Curt	69.8
16	Glavine, Tom	67.2
17	Reuschel, Rick	66.3
18	Drysdale, Don	65.6
19	Brown, Kevin	64.9
20	Smoltz, John	64.8