Where does Patrick Wisdom rank all-time among Chicago Cubs rookies?

Chicago Cubs Greatest Rookie Seasons of All-Time – #9: Bill Madlock (1974)

Bill Madlock can probably relate to the position that Patrick Wisdom and some of the other current Cubs players are in. Not only did he replace a Cubs legend at third base in Ron Santo, but he also came over to the Cubs before the 1974 season from the Texas Rangers in the Ferguson Jenkins trade. Taking over for a legend and fan favorite isn’t easy, but Madlock made a great first impression for fans on the north side.

Madlock had a great first stint in the majors with the Rangers in 1973, batting .351 in 21 games before the trade. Then, in 1974 in Chicago, he put together a great rookie campaign in which he finished third in NL Rookie of the Year voting. He missed about a month of action during the first half, yet he finished the season batting .313 with nine home runs and 54 RBI. He only struck out 39 times all year.

Madlock went on to have a great career. He won back-to-back batting titles with the Cubs in 1975 (.354) and 1976 (.339). Before the 1977 season, the Cubs traded him to the San Francisco Giants – foreshadowing another star third baseman being traded to the Giants 44 years later. (You’ll see him later on this list.)

Madlock finished his career with over 2,000 hits and a .305 batting average. He had nine seasons in which he batted over .300 and would win two more batting titles, with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1981 and in 1983.

Chicago Cubs Greatest Rookie Seasons of All-Time – #8: Ernie Banks (1954)

We know that Ernie Banks is one of the most celebrated players in Cubs history. We know about how he spent his entire career with the team, slugging 512 home runs. We know about the MVP seasons of 1958 and 1959. We know how he was an ambassador for the team for many years after he stopped playing. What we tend to forget is that he had a pretty good rookie season, too.

Banks made his debut late in the 1953 season, getting into ten games and, albeit in a small sample size, posted an impressive .956 OPS. The next year, his official rookie season, he got into all 154 Cubs games. He batted .275 with 19 home runs and 79 RBI, finishing second in NL Rookie of the Year voting and even finishing 16th in NL MVP voting.

It was only the beginning of a legendary run. The next year, 1955, Banks would start a streak of eight straight seasons in which he made the NL All-Star team. From 1955 to 1960, excluding 1956, he played in every Cubs game. He also hit over 40 home runs in five of the next six seasons while leading the National League in home runs twice and in RBIs twice. He did all this while playing shortstop, a position that wasn’t typically known for strong offensive players.

Banks would later move to first base to help prolong his career, while he continued to be a productive player all through the 1960s. In the end, he would make 14 All-Star teams and was an easy choice to gain election to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1977. It all started with that 1954 season; while it was far from his best season, it was a great effort that led to much more success.

Chicago Cubs Greatest Rookie Seasons of All-Time – #7: Mike Harkey (1990)

Mike Harkey is just one of two pitchers on this list; I really wanted to include Dick Drott and his solid 1957 rookie campaign in which he won 15 games, but in the end I decided that the Cubs had too many good offensive seasons to leave off the list. That being said, I still felt that I had to include Mike Harkey, as his 1990 season often gets overlooked in Cubs history.

Harkey debuted with the Cubs in 1988 and made five starts, pitching well, giving up just ten earned runs in 34 2/3 innings. He didn’t pitch with the big league club during their division-winning 1989 season, but he returned for his official rookie season in 1990. That year, he made 27 starts, going 173 2/3 innings in the process. He wasn’t overpowering, striking out only 94, but he posted a solid 3.26 ERA over those starts. That was good for fifth place in NL Rookie of the Year voting.

Like some of the other players on this list, Harkey didn’t do a whole lot after that. Over the next couple of years, he dealt with injuries and didn’t pitch much, and then in 1993 he made 28 starts and posted a 5.26 ERA. He then bounced around to a few different teams before last appearing in the majors in 1997.

Harkey became a coach after his playing career and is currently serving as a bullpen coach for the New York Yankees.

Chicago Cubs Greatest Rookie Seasons of All-Time – #6: Jerome Walton (1989)

Jerome Walton was the other half of the Cubs’ solid rookie one-two outfield punch during their division-winning season of 1989, to go along with the aforementioned Dwight Smith. Walton was drafted by the Cubs in the second round of the 1986 draft and started the season with the Cubs in 1989.

On Opening Day in 1989 against the Philadelphia Phillies, Walton collected two hits and started the season with a seven-game hitting streak. Walton would slump a little bit in the first half and also missed a month between May 10 and June 11, but in his first two games back against the St. Louis Cardinals he collected six hits, raising his batting average from .244 to .284.

Walton would have a tremendous second half of 1989, which included a 30-game hitting streak from July 21 through August 20 during which he batted .338. His final line on the season would include a .293 batting average with five home runs, 46 RBI, 24 stolen bases, and 64 runs scored. He was an overwhelming winner of the NL Rookie of the Year award and even finished 13th in NL MVP voting.

Walton’s career was also similar to that of Smith in that he wouldn’t accomplish a lot more after that magical 1989 season. He did hang around the major leagues until 1998 and was a member of the 1995 Cincinnati Reds’ playoff team, coming off the bench and batting .290 with eight home runs. Regardless of all that, Cubs fans will always remember his great 1989 performance fondly.

Chicago Cubs Greatest Rookie Seasons of All-Time – #5: Patrick Wisdom (2021)

A disclaimer before discussing the details of Wisdom’s 2021 season: There is still a month to go, and it is possible that Wisdom could climb up this list during the month of September. That being said, Wisdom, who just turned 30, is putting together a rookie season for the ages, all the more incredible when we consider that he didn’t even join the big league team until May 25.

Wisdom was a first-round pick of the St. Louis Cardinals in 2012, and he didn’t reach the majors until receiving a brief taste in 2018. He also saw a little action with the Texas Rangers in 2019 before signing as a free agent with the Seattle Mariners. The Mariners let him go, and the Cubs picked him up, giving him two at-bats toward the end of 2020.

When the big league club called him up in late May, no fan could have foreseen the success he would have. Through 82 games – roughly half a full season – Wisdom had pounded 25 home runs and driven in 50 while posting a .907 OPS. He’s also made quite a few nice defensive plays at third base. For a team that has had a rough season overall and left many of their fans disgruntled following all the trades of the star players, Wisdom has been a nice and a welcome story.

We Cubs fans are now wondering: Is Wisdom for real? Can he continue his newfound success into 2022 and beyond? Well, the power is clearly there, but he still strikes out a ton, so we’ll have to see whether that high whiff rate will catch up to him. For now, suffice it to say that Wisdom is quickly winning over Cubs fans who are starving for a hero.

Chicago Cubs Greatest Rookie Seasons of All-Time – #4: Billy Williams (1961)

Billy Williams remains a Cubs legend, having an amazing career with the team and gaining election into the Hall of Fame. He started all that off with a tremendous rookie campaign in 1961.

WIlliams had gotten into a little big league action in both 1959 and 1960, seeing 86 combined plate appearances. He still had rookie eligibility in 1961 and played in 146 games that year, batting .278 with 25  home runs and 86 RBI. He also hit 20 doubles and seven triples while posting an .822 OPS. Williams would win NL Rookie of the Year honors that year, the first of back-to-back such honors for the Cubs (Ken Hubbs would win the award in 1962).

The next year, 1962, Williams made the All-Star team, the first of six such honors for him. His 1961 season also started a streak of 13 straight years in which he would hit at least 20 home runs (He would hit at least 30 home runs in five of those years). And while he never won an MVP award, he did finish as the runner-up twice.

Of course, Williams was right in the middle of those good (but unfortunately not great) Cubs teams of the late 1960s and early 1970s. His final career totals: 2,711 hits, 426 home runs, and 1,475 RBI. He played for the Cubs through 1974 and spent his final two season with the Oakland Athletics, where he saw postseason action but never got that elusive championship.

We tend to forget that Williams won Rookie of the Year in 1961, but it was the start of one of the all-time great Cubs careers.

Chicago Cubs Greatest Rookie Seasons of All-Time – #3: Kerry Wood (1998)

No Cubs pitcher has ever burst onto the big league season quite like Kerry Wood. As we all know, he threw a one-hit shutout while striking out 20 Houston Astros in just his fifth big league start back on May 6, 1998. While it deserves to be recognized as one of the greatest single-game achievements in team history, there was so much more to Kerry Wood than just that one game.

A first round draft pick in 1995, Wood had a tremendous 1998 campaign overall, going 13-6 with a 3.40 ERA while striking out an incredible 233 batters in 166 2/3 innings. Wood also led the league by allowing just 6.3 hits per nine innings, while his 12.6 strikeouts per nine innings also led the league. Wood would miss the final month of the season due to injury, though he did get a start against the Atlanta Braves in the National League Division Series.

Unfortunately, that injury would foreshadow more to come throughout Wood’s career. He had to sit out all of 1999, and while he was a star for the Cubs during their magical 2003 run, injuries eventually forced him into a relief role. He actually had some success in that role, serving as the closer for the 2008 team that won the NL Central division.

Wood retired in 2012, and while he remains a Cubs legend, injuries prevented him from moving into elite territory in Cubs history. Still, that 1998 season remains one of the great stories in team history, as he, along with Sammy Sosa, led the team to the playoffs and brought in a lot of new Cubs fans.

Chicago Cubs Greatest Rookie Seasons of All-Time – #2: Geovany Soto (2008)

Geovany Soto saw a little bit of action with the big league club in 2005 and 2006. When the team traded Michael Barrett in the middle of the 2007 season, they acquired veteran Jason Kendall, but by the end of the season, as the team was heading toward an NL Central title, Soto had played himself into the starting lineup. In 18 games in 2007, Soto posted a 1.100 OPS before getting into two of the Cubs’ three postseason games that year.

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Soto was the Cubs’ primary catcher in 2008 and had a rookie season for the ages, batting .285 with 23 home runs and 86 RBI. His signature regular season moment came late in the season when he came up to bat with two on in the bottom of the ninth at home against the Milwaukee Brewers, the Cubs down by three. Soto launched a three-run homer into the bleachers to tie the game, and the Cubs would win in extra innings, putting the Brewers in their rearview mirror for good on their way to the NL Central title.

Soto’s offensive numbers are impressive enough, but when we consider he also caught for a pitching staff that led their team to a 97-64 record, his performance becomes even more impressive. Unfortunately, Soto would never repeat that success. He plummeted to a .218 average in 2019, and while he bounced back decently in 2010, by 2012 he had been moved to the Texas Rangers. He bounced around for a few more seasons.

Soto’s success as a rookie was incredible, and it may have been the greatest rookie performance in team history until…

Chicago Cubs Greatest Rookie Seasons of All-Time – #1: Kris Bryant (2015)

A lot of Cubs fans are still bitter about all the star players being traded away earlier this season, including Kris Bryant to the San Francisco Giants, but let’s not forget all the great things he did in a Cubs uniform.

It started in 2015, when the Cubs controversially called up the star prospect 12 games into the season to avoid adding a year to his service time. From there, Bryant went to work right away, setting the gold standard for Cubs rookie seasons.

He was called up on April 17 against the San Diego Padres and had a disappointing 0-for-4 debut, but soon after he started hitting the cover off the ball. In the end, Bryant batted .275 with 26 home runs (a Cubs rookie record, for now) and 99 RBI. He struck out a ton (199 times) but posted an impressive OPS of .858.

Bryant helped lead the team to a playoff berth and all the way to the National League Championship Series, where the Cubs lost to the New York Mets. Bryant didn’t hit particularly well in the postseason, collecting just six hits in nine games, but with his Rookie of the Year campaign he cemented himself as a Cubs star and would win NL MVP as he led the team to a championship just a year later.

Unfortunately, Bryant’s career with the Cubs ended earlier this year when he was traded to the Giants, while the service time controversy put a cloud over his time with the team. Still, it was a great career with the Cubs, and we wish him well as he plays for the Giants this year and then becomes a free agent.