Who are the 5 best players drafted by the Chicago Cubs?

The June player draft has existed since the 1965 season, and has become a paramount method for building a successful roster. The Chicago Cubs have had their share of hits and misses in the draft, but the five best players they’ve drafted were among the best in the game for at least part of their careers.

We’ll rely on the Baseball Reference version of WAR here. The stat line for each player shows the year drafted followed by the round. And note that the WAR numbers for pitchers include their hitting contributions (or “contributions”) – that’s why they’re a little different than just the pitching WAR you’ll see in Baseball Reference.

#5 Lee Smith (1975/2), 28.9 career WAR

In his first four professional seasons Smith was mainly a starter. In every one of those seasons, the right-hander walked more batters than he struck out; his K/BB ratio in 1979, the last of those four seasons, was an abysmal 0.54. After 448 innings over these four seasons, Smith looked like a failure.

These results might have shattered a lesser man, but Smith had a will like railroad steel. His first year as a reliever, the 1980 season, was the first in which his strikeouts exceeded his walks. After achieving that modest success at Triple-A,, the Cubs promoted him. (It didn’t take much to break into the Cubs’ staff back then.)

Needless to say, it worked. Over his eight seasons with the Cubs Smith put up a 2.29 ERA, a 134 ERA+, and saved 180 games for a franchise that was under .500 every year during that span except 1984. He generated about two-thirds of his career WAR with the Cubs, laying the groundwork for his ultimate induction into the Hall of Fame.

Chicago Cubs: Two stars you can’t help but wonder about – even now

#2 Rafael Palmeiro (1985/1), 71.9 career WAR

There’s no argument about Palmeiro: He is easily the best eligible first baseman not in the Hall. And there’s no mystery regarding his exclusion: He’s perceived as putting too many things in his body with long names ending in “-one.” But of the Cubs’ 99 problems, Raffy surely ain’t one; they dispatched him to the Republic of Texas after the 1988 season, long before ‘roids were a thing.

That was, in retrospect, a trade of Brock-Broglian proportions. The major leaguers the Cubs got in return were – and sensitive readers may wish to look away here – Mitch Williams, Steve Wilson, Paul Kilgus, and Curtis Wilkerson.

Yikes. These guys combined to contribute -0.2 WAR (yes, that little dash is a minus sign) to the Cubs during their stay on the North Side. Only Williams made a positive contribution, and only at the price of shortening the life of any teammate or fan who watched him pitch as though he were facing a giraffe’s strike zone.

As with Brock, the sin wasn’t trading Palmeiro. The Cubs had good young players ready to serve at the only two positions Palmeiro could credibly play: first (Mark Grace) and left (Dwight Smith). The sin was getting so little in return. The Cubs needed pitching, and while we don’t know what other offers GM Jim Frey might have had, trading Palmeiro for one better pitcher would have been more optimal than trading for three shaky ones.

#1 Greg Maddux (1984/2), 106.6 career WAR

Ten demerits if you didn’t guess this one. The Cubs decided they really didn’t need Greg Maddux after his absolutely filthy 1992 season. He was then just 26 years old and already the 19th best Cubs pitcher of all time. During his first shift with the Cubs, Maddux had a 3.35 ERA, 114 ERA+, 95 wins, and 26.4 WAR (that put him just behind Bill Hands). Maddux would finish as the 11th best Cubs hurler, after earning his Hall of Fame spurs in another city with a really busy airport.