Rizzo is also arguably the best active defensive first baseman. Soriano hit 181 home runs in his six-plus seasons with the Cubs, but at what cost? Despite only playing 141 games, he also placed ninth in the 2009 NL MVP vote while swatting 35 home runs with a career-best 111 RBI.

October 5, 1999: Lance Johnson was released by the Chicago Cubs. He's already at 22 home runs this season, and his current triple slash (.289/.324/.556) is almost identical to last year's (.290/.326/.554).

All columns may be sorted by clicking the column name. Cubs Win! the player's career statistics including his time with the 2000 Chicago Cubs.

He was also intentionally walked 37 times in 2001, which was even more free passes to first base than Bonds received (35).

But he was lights out en route to an MLB-best 2.13 ERA.

Kerry Wood's two greatest claims to fame—winning NL Rookie of the Year and striking out 20 Houston Astros in the fifth start of his career—technically don't count for this ranking, as they both happened in 1998.

Zambrano finished fifth in the NL Cy Young vote in 2004, 2006 and 2007. In 644 career games, Bryant already has a higher Fangraphs WAR (26.7) than Sammy Sosa had in 729 games played in the 2000s (25.9), and he's only 1.1 WAR behind Anthony Rizzo even though the first baseman has played in 454 more games with the Cubs. The Cubs won the game by a score of 5-3.[1].

Plus, explore all of your favorite teams' rosters on FOXSports.com today! Sosa led the majors in home runs in 2000 (50) and led the National League in that category in 2002 (49).

Lester went 19-5 with a 2.44 ERA in 2016, finishing second to Max Scherzer in the NL Cy Young vote. Team Roster. Unless otherwise noted, all WAR and advanced metrics courtesy of Baseball-Reference.

After hitting a triple and a home run in the first three games of his career, he didn't get any of either over the course of the next 32 games, batting .121 and slugging .187 with 33 strikeouts.

1998 NL MVP, seven-time All-Star, six-time Silver Slugger, Sosa finished among the top 10 in the NL MVP vote each year from 2000-03, and he certainly would've won the award in 2001 were it not for Barry Bonds mashing a record 73 homers. Brailyn Marquez is on the Cubs postseason roster. Among pitchers who logged at least 400 innings from 2001-03, Wood had the, Fortunately, the strikeout specialist didn't allow many hits. Dempster's decade-long journey from an All-Star as a starter with the Florida Marlins to Tommy John surgery with the Cincinnati Reds to three years as the Cubs closer to another All-Star roster as a starting pitcher was nothing short of remarkable.

Cubs Roster Moves: Jose Quintana Activated, Rex Brothers Optioned. The 2000 Chicago Cubs season was the 129th season of the Chicago Cubs franchise, the 125th in the National League and the 85th at Wrigley Field.The Cubs finished sixth and last in the National League Central with a record of 65–97.

Epstein shelled out the big bucks (six years, $155 million) that December to make Lester—a two-time World Series champion in Boston and a cancer survivor—the anchor of a pitching staff destined for greatness.

The 2000 Chicago Cubs season was the 129th season of the Chicago Cubs franchise, the 125th in the National League and the 85th at Wrigley Field.

When he was traded to Chicago in 2013, he had a career ERA of 5.46 and was sitting on a mark of 7.23 through five appearances that season.

And since thriving with the Cubs, he has been making about $1 million per start in Philadelphia with a higher ERA (4.23) and a much lower strikeout rate (7.2 K/9) than expected. But he hit below .230 in three of his next four seasons before the Cubs basically gave him away at the 2012 trade deadline.

He's still primarily the third baseman, but his ability to man any of the outfield spots or first base gives manager Joe Maddon more wiggle room to set the optimal lineup on any given night. However, 60 percent of his games played with the Cubs came before 2000, including his MVP campaign and two of his three seasons with more than 50 home runs.

In each of his final four seasons with the Florida Marlins, he had at least 20 home runs, 70 runs scored, 70 runs batted in and a .270 average.

Sosa finished among the top 10 in the NL MVP vote each year from 2000-03, and he certainly would've won the award in 2001 were it not for Barry Bonds mashing a record 73 homers. Yet through all of the bumps, bruises, sprains and strains, he was one of the best power hitters in Cubs history. In each of Hendricks' 10 starts in August and September, he went at least six innings while allowing two or fewer runs.

After missing the entire 1999 season due to Tommy John surgery and subsequently struggling through the 2000 campaign, Wood became a force for the first three years of this century. He was even stingier in the postseason, making six appearances (three in the World Series) with a 2.02 ERA.

Those feats are even more impressive when you consider he had almost no supporting cast in those seasons. That season, Sosa batted .328 and slugged .737 with 64 home runs and 160 RBI, Sosa hit at least 35 home runs and drove in at least 100 runs in nine consecutive seasons from 1995-2003. SimLeague Baseball lets you put Ruth, Ichiro & Mays in the same outfield to square off against Koufax and Pedro! The Cubs were a combined 60 games below .500 those two years, and no teammate even reached 20 home runs in 2000.

In each of those five seasons, Rizzo earned votes for NL MVP, including fourth-place finishes in 2015 and 2016. The Cubs traded for Rizzo the following January and somehow ended up acquiring one of the most consistent players in the game today.

Zambrano also has 56 more wins and 305 more strikeouts than any other recent North Sider can boast. For information regarding statistical abbreviations, please View the Statistics Legend. Among players considered, that only applies to 1998 NL MVP Sammy Sosa and 1998 NL Rookie of the Year Kerry Wood. That season, Sosa batted .328 and slugged .737 with 64 home runs and 160 RBI—all career highs except for the home runs (66 in 1998). A lot of players proved indispensable during Chicago's run to the 2016 World Series, but perhaps none more so than Kyle Hendricks.

For the Cubbies, though, he was a bonafide ace who played a big part in bringing the franchise its first World Series title in more than a century. He blew five saves but recorded 33 as he pitched to a 3.48 ERA, 1.37 WHIP and 4.10 FIP in … Ramirez ranks third in slugging percentage (.531) on the franchise's, It didn't take long for Ramirez to become one of the fan favorites in Chicago.

Per Fangraphs, his 29.4 ultimate zone rating (UZR) since 2012 is the highest for that position. Big Z made 282 starts during his 11 seasons in Chicago, which is nearly twice as many as the next-closest pitcher—154 by Ryan Dempster. And if you're alone on a list with Pedro, you're probably doing something incredible. Ramirez ranks third in slugging percentage (.531) on the franchise's all-time leaderboard, trailing only Hack Wilson (.590) and Sammy Sosa (.569). Zambrano is also the gold standard for slugging hurlers of the modern era. He has already won two Gold Gloves (2016 and 2018), and he probably deserves even more than that.

July 31, 2000: Henry Rodriguez was traded by the Chicago Cubs to the Florida Marlins for Ross Gload and Dave Noyce (minors). Per Fangraphs, the No. Among pitchers who logged at least 400 innings from 2001-03, Wood had the second-worst walk rate (4.34 BB/9) and hit the most batters (47).