Chicago Cubs: Top 5 seasons by a starter based on winning percentage

No stock has fallen further in recent years than pitcher wins. Today, you can find them along the far back wall of your local Baseball Depot, between AstoTurf and bullpen carts. While the win lacks force as a diagnostic or predictive tool. a pitcher that garners a bunch of them in a season has probably done at least some things right. and when that pitcher wins many and loses very few, chances are he’s had a pretty good season. So let’s look at the five best seasons by winning percentage amassed by Chicago Cubs starters. And no, this isn’t just an excuse to spend more time discussing Jon Les-

#5 Jon Lester 2018, 18-6, .750, 3.32 ERA, 125 ERA+, 4.39 FIP

Oh, alright – maybe just a little more Jon Lester! His 18 wins in 2018 lead the National Baseball League, and his .750 wining percentage was third. As that FIP shows, by now Lester’s paint was beginning to chip. His walk and strikeout rates both began heading in the wrong direction, and the homers that would ultimately eat him up were beginning to fly out of the yard. But this performance would help the Cubs to their last 90-win campaign under Theo Epstein and Joe Maddon.

#4 Jon Lieber 2001, 20-6, .769, 3.80 ERA, 109 ERA+, 3.79 FIP

Jon Lieber, Aramis Ramirez, Kenny Lofton … there was a time when the Pittsburgh Pirates served the Cubs as a talent pipeline. Acquired from the Bucs after the 1998 season in exchange for Brant Brown, Lieber would proceed to pitch with some old school grit. He had three 200+ inning seasons from 1999-2001, culminating with this 20-win effort. Like Lester’s 2018 season, Lieber’s gaudy record came with danger signs. Never a high strikeout guy, his whiff rate declined significantly in 2001, but he retained the miniscule walk rate that was his signature pitching attribute.

#3 Jake Arrieta 2015, 22-6, .786, 1.77 ERA, 215 ERA+, 2.35 FIP

This was the 16th-best ERA+ season in the divisional era, and the Cubs’ second best behind Yu Darvish’s effort during the COVID-shortened 2020 season. Arrieta lead the majors in wins, complete games (4), shutouts (3), hits per nine (5.9), and homers per nine (0.4). He won the National League Cy Young and led the Cubs in WAR. This remarkable season was the single biggest reason the Cubs unexpectedly flirted with 100 wins in 2015. Hey, we’ve gone two whole paragraphs without talking about Jon Les-

#2 Jon Lester 2016, 19-5, .792, 2.44 ERA, 171 ERA+, 3.41 FIP

There’s that man again! No surprise that this season is on the list; perhaps the main reason Lester could get elected mayor right now is his critical role in breaking the curse. He was sixth in the NL in innings, seventh in strikeouts, and eighth in strikeouts per nine. Those are the kind of numbers with which you can stare down a goat.

#1 Rick Sutcliffe 1984, 16-1, .941, 2.69 ERA, 144 ERA+, 2.28 FIP

The Red Baron actually lost six games in 1984, but he had the good sense to lose five of them with the Cleveland Baseball Team before the trade that sent Joe Carter and Mel Hall the other way. Sutcliffe would power the Cubs to their first postseason appearance on color television. He had help of course, most notably from Ryne Sandberg’s MVP season, but Sutcliffe played a big role in breaking the little curse of their decades long playoff drought.