This is an update to the Derrek Lee profile in the Top 100 Cubs series that was posted on December 8, 2006. Lee was 73rd in the original ranking, done after the 2006 season; his seasons since then, even with some of the time he lost to injury, have moved him up to 58th. (In career WAR as a Cub, D-Lee ranks 56th.) Most of this is the original post; the additional material is at the end of the post, with a bit of editing throughout to bring dates, etc. up to date. This is the third of four active player profile updates; Kerry Wood was updated on January 23, Carlos Zambrano on January 24, and Aramis Ramirez on January 25. In addition, the profile of Greg Maddux, who played two more years after 2006, will also be updated before spring training begins. The original comments are still here; you can add to them now.

Among the most popular Cubs in his nearly seven years with the team, Derrek Lee is both the son and the nephew of former ballplayers, and the father and uncle are often confused because only one letter differentiates their names, and both had long and successful careers playing baseball in Japan.

Leron Lee, Derrek's uncle, played eight major league seasons with the Cardinals, Padres, Indians and Dodgers as a part-time outfielder; his best year was 1972, when he hit 12 HR in 370 AB with a triple-slash line of .300/.353/.497.

Leon Lee, Derrek's dad, never played in the major leagues; after a brief minor league career he wound up playing for the Lotte Orions, Yakult Swallows and Taiyo Whales for ten seasons. As of 2007, he ranked tenth all-time in Japanese ball in batting average for anyone with more than 4000 AB there; Leron was the all-time leader at that time.

Leon eventually became a manager for the Orix Blue Wave and a Pacific Rim scout for the Cubs, and that, indirectly, is how his son Derrek, who was born in Leon's hometown of Sacramento on September 6, 1975, became a member of the Cubs -- because it was at Leon Lee's recommendation that the Cubs signed Korean prospect Hee Seop Choi, who was eventually dealt to the Florida Marlins on November 25, 2003, in exchange for Derrek. In many ways, Leon Lee's life is quite a bit more interesting than Derrek's, given the world travels he has made, and sadly, his arrest for allegedly exposing himself to some women at a hotel in Florida during spring training in 2004, essentially ending his career in baseball.

However, since this profile isn't about Leon Lee, but his son, let us continue. Derrek Lee played high school ball in Sacramento and in 1993 became the San Diego Padres' first-round draft pick (chosen fourteenth overall in that draft). It would take him a couple of years before he developed the power stroke that he now shows off at the major league level -- his first big minor league year was 1995, where he hit 23 HR for Rancho Cucamonga in the California League; his 34 HR, 104 RBI season for Memphis the following year at age 20 put him on the fast track to the majors.

In his 1997 debut for the Padres, he struggled, striking out 24 times in 54 at-bats and hitting only one home run. And then, for the first of two times in his career, he was traded as part of a salary dump -- when the Marlins were dismantling their 1997 World Championship team, they sent Kevin Brown to the Padres for Lee. He struggled again, showing some power (17 HR in 1998), and when he got off to a slow start in 1999, wound up spending half that year in Triple-A.

The repeat minor league experience clearly helped. At age 24 in 2000, Lee jetted to the next level of performance, putting up a fine .281/.368/.507 season with 28 HR and 70 RBI; he repeated a similar year in 2001 and then increased his power production to 27 HR in 2002 and 31 in 2003.

The rest of the 2003 Marlins season with Derrek Lee and others is perhaps best not recollected here.

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This is an update to the Aramis Ramirez profile in the Top 100 Cubs series that was originally posted on December 25, 2006 -- written by BCB'er Ross. Ramirez was 55th in the original ranking, done after the 2006 season; his seasons since then, even with some of the time he lost to injury, have moved him up to 47th. (In career WAR as a Cub, Aramis ranks 55th as of the end of the 2010 season.) Most of this is the original post; the additional material is at the end of the post, with a bit of editing throughout to bring dates, etc. up to date. This is the second of five profile updates; Kerry Wood's was updated on January 23, Carlos Zambrano's on January 24 and the profile of the other active player on the list -- Derrek Lee, as well as the profile of Greg Maddux, who played two more years after 2006 -- will also be updated before spring training begins. The original comments are still here; you can add to them now.

Profile by BCB reader Ross (edited by Al Yellon with additions on January 25, 2011)

If the BCB top 100 list had been compiled in 1985, where would Ryne Sandberg have ranked? How about in 1957? Where would Ernie Banks have finished?

Aramis Ramirez's 47th placement on this list should come with an asterisk. His is a career that is incomplete, a career that likely has not yet reached its peak. In fact, the Cubs bet about $75 million over five years that he'd peak with the team, and despite several serious injuries, he has produced many exciting days -- one of them pictured above -- and, with his 19th home run of 2011, will pass Gabby Hartnett into sixth place on the all-time Cub home run list. He is a great success story; a young prospect who was brought up too soon, overcame injuries and finally found himself as one of the premier third basemen in baseball.

A cousin of slugger Manny Ramirez, Aramis Nin Ramirez was born June 25, 1978 in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. He signed with the Pirates as a 16-year-old non-drafted free agent in November 1994, even before he graduated from Aida Cartagena Portalatin HS. He opened his professional career with the Pirates' Dominican Rookie Summer League team, belting 11 homers, 13 doubles and 54 RBI in 1995.

He went to Single-A Erie in 1996 and earned All-Star honors with a .305 batting average and nine homers as a 17-year-old. The next year he cemented himself as one of the Pirates' top prospects when he won the Carolina League MVP award, batting .278 with 29 homers and 114 RBI at Lynchburg.

With incumbent 3B Joe Randa leaving Pittsburgh following the 1997 season, and starters Freddy Garcia (not the Mariners and White Sox pitcher) and Doug Strange not exactly tearing the cover off of the ball, the door was opened for the 19-year-old Ramirez to make his big league debut on May 26, 1998. He quickly proved that he was overmatched, going hitless in his first 24 at bats, but he came around, hitting .260 the rest of the way and finished the season at .235 with six homers and 24 RBI in 71 games. He suffered a separated shoulder and missed nearly a month.

The Pirates organization wasn't thrilled with the team's 5-25 record down the stretch and acquired a handful of veterans, including third baseman Ed Sprague, thus relegating Ramirez back to the minors. He tore up AAA pitching to the tune of .328 with 21 homers and 76 RBI, earning All-Star honors and a September cup of coffee. He also appeared in the All-Star Futures game. "There is little doubt he has superstar ability, but he's not yet ready to take that step at age 20," the Stats Inc. Scouting Notebook wrote of him following the season.

Sprague was gone by 2000 and the starting job was Ramirez's to lose. And lose it he did, hitting just .167 in 18 games before getting sent down again. He tore up AAA at .353 with 4 homers and 26 RBI and was selected to play in Futures Game before Pittsburgh recalled him. He hit .256 with six homers and 35 RBI before he suffered a dislocation of his left shoulder in late August and missed the rest of the season.

By the 2001 season, Ramirez had been pegged as an enigma. A below average runner who was hit and miss with the glove. A strong arm and a lackadaisical attitude. Immature and arrogant, but with signs of maturity and humility. It was a crossroads in his career, and Ramirez proved he was up to the challenge, putting together a breakthrough season as he hit .300 with 40 doubles, 34 homers and 112 RBI. The 2002 season saw him continue to put up big numbers in the early going and he was hitting .348 on April 17 when his season took a turn. He was plunked by the Brewers' Ben Sheets and charged the mound, only to find himself suffering a sprained ankle at the bottom of a scrum during the bench-clearing brawl. Though he never went on the DL, was unable to generate any power off of the bum ankle and hit just .234 with 17 homers.

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This is an update to the Carlos Zambrano story in the Top 100 Cubs series that I wrote on December 22, 2006. Z was 59th in the original ranking, done after the 2006 season; his seasons since then, even with some of his troubles, move him up to 43rd. (In career WAR as a Cub, Z ranks 32nd.) Most of this is the original post; the additional material is at the end of the post, with a bit of editing throughout to bring dates, etc. up to date. This is the second of four profile updates; Kerry Wood's was updated on January 23, and the profiles of the other two active players on the list -- Aramis Ramirez and Derrek Lee -- will also be updated before spring training begins. The original comments are still here; you can add to them now.

Well he went down to dinner in his Sunday best
Excitable boy, they all said
And he rubbed the pot roast all over his chest
Excitable boy, they all said
Well he's just an excitable boy...
-- Warren Zevon, "Excitable Boy"

Rubbing pot roast on his chest is about the only thing the very, very excitable Carlos Zambrano hasn't done on the pitcher's mound.

I'm exaggerating here, of course. Z's excitable nature, his histrionics on the mound, his clear passion for playing baseball, are all things that make him the exciting player to watch, the guy we all love, the pitcher who's already, at age 25, a dominant force in the major leagues.

Carlos was born June 1, 1981 in Puerto Cabello, Venezuela. Look at that birth date and realize that there are players born on or around that time who are still toiling away in the minor leagues, having not made any impact in major league baseball, or perhaps not even having played a single game in the majors. In 2006, I wrote this:

For an excellent example of this, you need go no further than the Cubs' own 40-man roster, where you will find the name of Clay Rapada, recently added; many people, including many of you, think Rapada has talent (and I'd agree), and might someday become a good major league reliever.

Rapada was born March 9, 1981 -- he is three months older than Z, and has never thrown a major league pitch. (That was true when I wrote it on December 22, 2006; who'd have guessed, then, that Rapada would wind up in the playoffs, four years later, for the Texas Rangers?)

In fact, when Z made his major league debut, starting the second game of a doubleheader against the Brewers on August 20, 2001, he was the first player in the major leagues to have been born in the 1980's; he was only a couple of months past his 20th birthday. That debut was, as was Kerry Wood's, less than auspicious; he gave up four hits and four walks in four innings, including a three-run homer to Kevin Brown (this Kevin Brown, not the pitcher), and Don Baylor mercifully pulled him after he allowed a single, walk, stolen base and wild pitch to start the fifth inning.

I had seen Z throw in spring training that year and had some spirited debates on the old Cubs Usenet newsgroup (which some of you might remember) about whether Z might be better suited to relief pitching. In fact, had he taken that track, he might well have become an elite closer. He certainly has the stuff and the mound presence and the right approach to be one.

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This is an update to the Kerry Wood story in the Top 100 Cubs series that I wrote on December 17, 2006. Wood was 64th in the original ranking, done after the 2006 season; his return and good year as closer in 2008 moved him up five spots in the ranking. Most of this is the original post; the additional material is at the end of the post, with a bit of editing throughout to bring dates, etc. up to date. The profiles of the other three active players on the list -- Carlos Zambrano, Aramis Ramirez and Derrek Lee -- will also be updated before spring training begins. The original comments are still here; you can add to them now.

Legend.

That's what Kerry Wood could have been, entering his tenth major league season in 2007, had he not been derailed by injuries and, talk is, his own stubbornness in refusing to adjust his pitching style to avoid those injuries.

The buzz around Kerry Wood began even before he threw a single professional pitch. Born on June 16, 1977 in the Dallas, Texas suburb of Irving, Wood was a high school phenom, going 12-0 with a 0.77 ERA his senior year, resulting in him becoming the fourth selection in the 1995 amateur draft by the Cubs, right behind Darin Erstad, Jose Cruz Jr., and Ben Davis, all of whom also, oddly enough, had careers partly derailed by injuries.

Just a few days after he was drafted, Wood threw both ends of a doubleheader for his high school team, throwing an estimated 175 pitches. This prompted then-Cub scouting director Al Goldis to say of him:

I haven't seen a guy throw like this in 10 years. If [Dwight] Gooden was in this draft, I would have taken Wood ahead of him.

Wood, blessed with great size for a pitcher, great talent, and a great baseball name, rocketed through the Cub farm system. In the spring of 1998, Wood was clearly the best pitcher for the Cubs during training camp, but at age 20 it was felt he needed more time in Triple-A. That prompted a comment from then-Angels manager Terry Collins, who was asked shortly after Wood was reassigned to Iowa who he thought would win the World Series that year. When Collins said "The Cubs", he was asked why. His answer:

If the Cubs have five pitchers better than Kerry Wood, they'll definitely win the World Series.

I watched Wood pitch twice that spring, and once sat right behind a scout with a radar gun. Every pitch was between 96 and 98 MPH -- except for the knee-bending curveball which would freeze batters in their tracks.

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Ryan Dempster is what every baseball player should be.

He's talented at his craft. He works hard -- from what I have heard and seen, he works harder than just about any of his teammates, and that's not a rip on his teammates, just a credit to how hard Dempster works.

He's a good family man who has dedicated his life to helping find a cure for the affliction that his daughter was born with, so that people less fortunate than he is who have the same issue, can get some help.

He's a wit and a humorist. How many athletes who hold fundraisers for their foundations emcee them by themselves? Dempster hosted a fundraiser I attended for his foundation last summer, and he was funnier than any professional comedian they could have hired. He does an absolutely dead-on-hilarious Harry Caray impression.

And beyond that, he truly seems to understand how fortunate he is to be making the money he is, playing the game he loves -- a game that so many of his countrymen ignore, since they're so focused on hockey. I like the way Dempster is a true hockey fan, just like any of the rest of us who are fans. For lack of a better term, he "gets it". He hasn't played his entire career as a Cub, but entering his eighth season on the North Side, I hope he finishes his career here and celebrates a World Series win with the rest of us. He's one of us.

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This is another in an update to BCB's Top 100 Cubs series, originally posted in 2006.

You all know Ted Lilly pretty well, so this profile will be a summary of his life and playing career.

But I also wanted to take note of the one play that perhaps defined Ted "Bulldog" Lilly for Cubs fans, and particularly those of us here at BCB, forever.

You know the one I'm talking about -- it happened on September 10, 2008 in St. Louis. The Cubs came into that game having lost eight of their last nine, including the first game of the series against the Cardinals, and although they still led the Brewers by 4.5 games, it got to be nervous time, a little, at least.

The Cubs had given up a run in the first inning and then in the second, three singles tied the game. With runners on first and second, Ted came up and sacrificed -- but reached on an error by Cardinals 3B Felipe Lopez, loading the bases. Another error by Lopez allowed two runs in, and Ted wound up on third. After Ryan Theriot grounded out, Derrek Lee hit a ball to deep short; Ted had broken for the plate.

The throw came home and Ted, leading with his pitching shoulder, barrelled into Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina.

It was the hit of the year, literally. Ted was tagged out, but three innings later Molina was literally out -- he left the game and would play only parts of two games the rest of the season. (Ted knocked him out for the year!), and the Cubs wound up winning the game. It was the first of five in a row and nine of 11 on their way to the division title.

October 2008 didn't work out too well, but we'll always have that image (and sorry, SB Nation doesn't have the rights to post that photo) of Ted Lilly.

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This is another in an update to BCB's Top 100 Cubs series, originally posted in 2006. This profile was written by Mike Bojanowski, BCB's cartoonist.

Larry Jackson is a fine representation of the starting pitchers of his era. Though well within living memory, it’s a type that now seems as distant as dead balls and webless gloves. He piled up games, innings, and decisions with clockwork regularity. He is also a classic example of a pitcher who toils for drudging teams, receiving little statistical flash or reward. He delivered three superb seasons for plodding Cubs nines during the mid 1960s; seasons that, pitched for an elite team, would have conferred major stardom.

Lawrence Curtis Jackson was born in Nampa, Idaho, near Boise, June 2, 1931, he remained a local boy all his life. Signed out of college by St. Louis, he made his pro mark spectacularly in 1952, his second season, leading Fresno to the California League pennant with a 28-4 record and 351 strikeouts. He rose steadily through the minors, debuting with the Cardinals in 1955.

Jackson divided his time between starting and relieving until 1959, when he became a starter full-time. A tall right-hander, his slider was his out pitch. His best year in St. Louis was 1960, an 18-13 record, leading the league in starts and innings pitched. He missed the beginning of the 1961 season, after his jaw was broken in a spring training game by a shard off the shattered bat of Duke Snider; nothing is new under the sun. On October 17, 1962, in one of the meaty trades so common in that era, Jackson was dealt to the Cubs, with Lindy McDaniel and Jim Schaeffer; in exchange for George Altman, Don Cardwell, and Moe Thacker.

Jackson’s first season with the Cubs is a sort that modern stat gurus love, a classic hard-luck story, revealed by a closer look at the figures. His won-loss, then as now the first thing anyone looks at, was 14-18, for a seventh place team. But his ERA was a sparkling 2.55. The Cubs scored all of 29 runs in his 18 losses, and were shutout four times, three of those 1-0. Jackson suffered eight one-run defeats in all. His only real luck that year came in the All-Star Game, the fourth of his five appearances in the midsummer classic. Though allowing two runs, tying the game, he earned the victory as the NL retook the lead immediately after his departure.

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Following Art "Solly" Hofman's No. 97 profile yesterday, here is another in a six-part offseason series this year in which I revisited the rankings of the top 100 Cubs of all time, originally done in the winter of 2006-07. In addition to six new profiles (the first was Jon Lieber, the new #100 on Nov. 29), I'll be revising the profiles of the four active players on this list (Kerry Wood, Aramis Ramirez, Carlos Zambrano and Derrek Lee) over the winter. Also, at this time there aren't any photos of Hank Wyse available that I have permission to post. If anyone does, send it to me and I'll post it with this profile.

Hank Wyse was born in Lunsford, Arkansas on March 1, 1918 and signed with the Cubs in 1940. After a couple of years in the minor leagues he made his Cubs debut on September 7, 1942 and it appeared he was on his way to a fine Cubs career -- except it was partly derailed when he suffered a back injury when he fell off a welding platform while working in the offseason in a war plant in Miami, Oklahoma. The injury gave him 4-F draft status during the war, so he was one of the few players in the primes of their careers who were not eligible for military service. He also had to wear a corset while he pitched.

Wyse was a part-time starter and part-time reliever (15 starts, 23 relief appearances) in 1943 -- that during an era when the roles were different than they are now; many pitchers would spot-start and throw out of the bullpen between those starts. Then in 1944 he became a mainstay of the Cubs' rotation, going 16-15 but with a 3.15 ERA, and in 1945 was one of the best pitchers in the National League, finishing 22-10, ranking fifth in NL ERA at 2.68 and second in NL WAR at 5.1. He was selected to the All-Star team but no game was played due to wartime travel restrictions; it was his only All-Star selection. He also finished seventh in MVP voting in those pre-Cy Young Award days. On April 28, 1945 he took a no-hitter into the eighth inning against the Pirates; Bill Salkeld broke it up with one out. At the time no Cub had thrown a no-hitter in 28 years and it would be ten more seasons before Sam Jones would break that drought.

Wyse's 20-win season in 1945 made him the only Cubs pitcher with a 20-win season between 1940 (Claude Passeau, 20) and 1963 (Dick Ellsworth, 22).

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