Chicago Cubs: Who were the best free agent bargains in franchise history?

The free agency world was a bit different in 1986 and ’87. Really, free agency was a little more than a decade old, and owners hadn’t quite yet caught on to the idea of an open market for players.

Players were still considered the property of their teams. So when Andre Dawson decided that Montreal’s Olympic Stadium was killing his body and that he no longer wanted to play for the Expos, nobody else was jumping up to give him a contract — despite that he was a six-time Gold Glover, and All Star, and a possible Hall of Famer. In those days, players didn’t dictate where they played.

So Dawson and his agent did something desperate. They called Dallas Green, then General Manager of the Chicago Cubs, and said that they had already signed a contract with the Cubs… and were willing to accept whatever dollar amount the Cubs wanted to write in.

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The Cubs wrote in $500,000, a figure well below Dawson’s value. They offered bonuses if Dawson played in the All-Star game or won the MVP award in 1987. That season, the Hawk slammed 49 home runs and drove in 137 en route to winning the MVP award–all while playing for a pretty bad team.

Dawson played in four more All Star games as a Cub and twice more drove in over 100 runs. He requested that his Hall of Fame plaque picture him in a Cubs hat, but that request was denied. He was enshrined as an Expo–the team he fled for the Cubs back in 1987.