The Cubs won the 1932 NL pennant, but were swept by the Yankees in the World Series. They didn't do much to change the team for '33, save one big trade we'll talk about in the next installment.
A mediocre start doomed the Cubs, who were never in first place the entire '33 season after winning on Opening Day. They managed to squeak to two games out after a six-game winning streak in July, but couldn't get closer and finished third, six games behind the pennant-winning Giants.
As we get further back in time, you will see more and more deals directly with minor-league teams, many of which were independent, or mostly so, back in the day.
Stainback, an outfielder, was a 21-year-old kid who'd had a couple of really good years at Los Angeles. But he was never more than a part-time player in Chicago, where he batted .267/.295/.346 in 267 games over four years with the Cubs before he was included in the Dizzy Dean deal in early 1938. That was worth negative (-1.7) bWAR.
Years after his playing career ended, the Dodgers hired him to run group ticket sales, a position he held until he retired in 1977.
Becht didn't resurface in the majors until three games (12.79 ERA) with the Browns in 1937, and Gudat never played in the majors again.
The Cubs didn't give up much here, but didn't get much either, so we'll call this one a wash, except for the cash, which was reported in a February 1934 Sporting News article.
Here's another case of getting a player long after he was good, the Cubs hoping they could get some of that back. Douthit had four very good seasons for the Cardinals from 1926-29, getting MVP votes in three of those seasons and playing in three World Series for St. Louis.
By 1933 he was just about done at age 32. He batted .225/.329/.296 in 27 games for the Cubs and then they sent him away in the following transaction...
Mosolf played slightly better (.268/.326/.390) in 31 games for the Cubs than Douthit had, but those were the last MLB games he played. Mosolf played three minor-league seasons after 1933, and Douthit retired from pro ball. Another couple of nothingburgers of trades.
This was one of the best acquisitions in Cubs history. You can see from this and the other cash deal in this installment that a lot of baseball owners were hard up for cash in the midst of the Depression. So baseball owners who had money could do things like this.
Lee had played in the independent minor leagues beginning in 1930, when he was 20. After a couple of years of success there the Cardinals acquired him for their growing farm system and assigned him to their team in Columbus (American Association). Lee pitched well for two years there, and clearly a scout for the Cubs liked what he saw, and the Cardinals wanted/needed the cash more.
Lee, who became known as "Big Bill," spent 11 years with the Cubs beginning in 1934 and posted 139 wins, which to this day ranks sixth in franchise history (since 1900). He was a 20-game winner for the 1935 team and got some downballot MVP votes, and in 1938 was 22-9 with a league-leading 2.66 ERA and nine shutouts. If there had been a Cy Young Award he surely would have won it; he finished second in MVP voting to Ernie Lombardi of the Reds, and Lee had a far better year. His 8.0 bWAR (not that anyone knew what WAR was in 1938) is the 13th-best pitching season by bWAR in Cubs history (since 1900), just behind Jake Arrieta's 8.3 in 2015.
Lee had 27.9 bWAR in his Cubs career, which included a brief return in 1947 before he retired.
This might have been the best $25,000 the Cubs ever spent. It's roughly equivalent to $575,000 today.
I mention Newsom, a departure from the team, here only because you might not have even realized he was a Cub. They had acquired him in the previous year's Rule 5 Draft and he pitched in exactly one game for the Cubs, June 4, 1932, an inning of relief in a 12-4 loss to the Pirates.
Newsom went on to pitch for more than two decades in the big leagues, mostly for really bad teams. In order: Browns, Senators, Red Sox, Browns again, Tigers, Senators, Dodgers, Browns yet again, Senators again, A's, Senators still again, Yankees, Giants, a FOURTH stint with the Senators and A's for a second time -- more than 20 years after the Cubs let him go, at age 45 in 1953. He pitched in the World Series for the Tigers in 1940 and Yankees in 1947 and posted a career total of 51.3 bWAR, 211 wins (though 222 losses, probably because his teams were so bad), with 2,082 strikeouts in an era when guys didn't strike out that many. At the time of his retirement he was eighth on the all-time K list. (Now, he ranks 76th.)
Newsom was a four-time All-Star who got MVP votes in four different seasons. He had very good years in 1938 for a horrendous Browns team (97 losses). If he's on the Cubs that year, does that help them in the World Series? Maybe.
If nothing else, he's a really good Immaculate Grid answer.
This is another outstanding trade.
Of the players traded, only one (Hermann, and just briefly in 1935) got back to the majors. According to The Sporting News, the Cubs had purchased all these players from various minor-league teams for the specific purpose of including them in this trade.
Galan, meanwhile, became an outstanding outfielder for the Cubs. He led the NL in runs (133) and steals (22) in 1935, helping the Cubs to the pennant. Then he stole 23 bases in 1937. Granted that steals were being de-emphasized in that power-laden era, but no one else stole that many for the Cubs until Tony Taylor had 23 in 1959.
After '37 Galan's production began to fade with injuries and eventually they traded him to the Dodgers. Healthy again, he had outstanding years in Brooklyn in 1943, 1944 and 1945; too bad the Cubs didn't have him in '45.
Overall in eight years for the Cubs: .277/363/.409, 18.3 bWAR, 912 runs in 903 games and 90 stolen bases.
Here is perhaps the best example of a trade made in the Depression era because a team was having financial difficulties.
The Phillies had been a pretty bad team since 1918. They had 14 consecutive losing seaons from 1918-31, managed to finish over .500 in 1932 -- largely because of Klein, who had a massive MVP season -- then dropped back to 92 losses again in 1933. They drew only 156,421 fans for the entire 1933 season -- remember, this was the worst year of the Depression and many people simply didn't have money to spend going to baseball games. The Phillies needed cash, and the Cubs had it.
Klein was clearly the league's best player in 1933, though he finished second in MVP voting to Carl Hubbell of the pennant-winning Giants. It was a justifiable vote, though Klein posted 8.0 bWAR, and led the league in hits, doubles, HR, RBI, BA, OBP, SLG... just about everything. He was basically the Mike Trout of his time.
Koenig never played for the Phillies; they sent him to the Reds a month later.
Kleinhans pitched in five games for the Phillies before they also swapped him to the Reds in May 1934.
Hendrick, who was 36, batted .293/.344/.362 in 59 games for the Phillies, then retired.
The Phillies didn't really care. They needed the money, roughly equivalent to about $1.6 million today. It's not an exaggeration to say that money saved the Phillies from bankruptcy -- and they weren't the only MLB team on the verge of bankruptcy in that era.
The Cubs were thrilled to get Klein. He began the 1934 season picking up where he'd left off in Philly in 1933. In his first 39 games with the Cubs he batted .325/.398/.650 with 13 home runs. It could have been another MVP season, except in the second game of a doubleheader May 30, a serious injury happened, per Klein's SABR biography:
"When I joined the Cubs, I started out doing good work. I thought I was set for one of my best years, but on the thirtieth of May, while I was running the bases, I tore a muscle loose the back of one of my legs," he told reporters years later, "it bothered me, but I stayed on my feet for some time until I discovered that I was making a bad matter worse. Without any hesitation I'll say that my disappointing work in 1934 was mainly due to my leg. It hurt me in 1935 too."
It hurt him beyond that. It was probably a hamstring injury that never healed properly. The Cubs dealt him back to Philly in 1936, and he had a decent season that year (.306/.358/.512 with 25 home runs), but he was never quite the same player.
Klein retired after 1944 with exactly 300 career home runs. At the time of his retirement he was seventh on the all-time home run list, and I remember that "300" number prominently featured in home-run lists in baseball books I read as a kid, the writers used that number as a cutoff. Even at the dawn of the divisional play era -- the beginning of the 1969 season -- Klein ranked 27th on the home-run list. Now? 162nd.
Chuck Klein was a legitimately great player for his first six seasons, then injuries ruined the rest, very similar to what's happened to Mike Trout. Klein had 191 home runs through age 28, averaging 32 per season. If he'd have stayed healthy, he could easily have hit 400, perhaps more. He's one of the biggest what-ifs in baseball history.
And if he'd been healthy, I'd say the Cubs would have won more pennants and perhaps even a World Series or two in the 1930s.
The Cubs made some excellent deals in 1933 and didn't really whiff on anything. Grade: A.