Tuesday, July 17, 2018

The 47 Best Players from the 1998 Chicago Cubs - #24 Kevin Orie

24. Kevin Orie
Let's just address the elephant in the room. Kevin Orie should not be this high on the list. His 1998 was TERRIBLE, but guess what? This is my list, and I'll do what I want. I freaking loved Kevin Orie, and no nerd is going to come in with his "stats" and make me think anything other than Kevin Orie was the greatest Cubs third baseman since Ron Santo. Still, his 1998 was terrible.

But before we get to 1998, we need to go back a little further to show how good Kevin Orie was. In 1992, Orie tore it up as a sophomore for the University of Indiana where he hit 20 home runs on his way to a 1.249 OPS. His junior year wasn't quite as good, but he still had an 1.067 OPS which is not too shabby. This was enough for the Cubs to select him 29th overall in the 1993 draft and send him where he was solid in Low-A for the rest of the year.

In 1994, he got hurt, and he couldn't get it back on track in 1995, but things finally turned around for him in his pro career in 1996. At Double-A, he put up a line of .314/.403/.480 which was good enough to get a promotion to Triple-A at the end of the year. Even though he only played 14 games at Triple-A, he showed enough to start the year on the big league roster in 1997. In his rookie year, he managed to put up a very respectable .275/.350/.431 slash line and big things were sure to come for Orie in 1998.

Kevin Orie immediately capitalized on the momentum from 1997 as he tore it up in the first series with three doubles and a home run. After the first two weeks, he was totally fulfilling his potential with a line of .308/.364/.487. And then he shit the bed. Four games later, his slugging percentage dropped below .400. It would never rise above .400 again. Just ten games after that, on April 27, his slugging percentage dipped below .300, and would never even reach .300 for the rest of his time on the team. And the Cubs started him nearly every day. But it's not like he didn't have some impact. Here's his one baseball highlight on YouTube.

Damnit, Kevin. Finally, at the end of May, the Cubs sent him to Iowa, as he was hitting .181/.241/.282.

He did well at Iowa and earned a promotion back to the big league club at the end of June, but he was still awful. Finally, the Cubs had seen enough. Desperate for relief help at the trade deadline, the Cubs traded him and Justin Speier to the Marlins for Felix Heredia. I remember being so angry that the Cubs gave up on Orie, because despite his struggles, I never stopped believing in him. He ended his time with the Cubs in 1998 with a slash line of .181/.253/.279

He bounced back to solid numbers for the rest of 1998 with the Marlins, but he fell apart again in 1999. In 2000 and 2001 he put up good numbers at Triple-A, and the Cubs got me way too excited when they signed him to a deal before the 2002 season. I was so excited, because I thought he was destined to resurrect his career. He crushed it for Iowa and got another chance in Chicago where he put up a fine line of .281/.306/.375 in 13 games. Yeah, that's not awe-inspiring, but it's not too shabby in a short period of time. Still, the Cubs let him go in the offseason.

He didn't play in 2003 but crushed it in 2004 with a .988 OPS, and then in 2005, he managed to put up a 1.076 OPS, and neither year he made the major leagues. The man was putting up astronomical numbers, but he couldn't get another chance. In 2006, he crushed it in spring training for the Astros, but got sent to Triple-A to start the season where he played the first game before retiring from baseball.

There are some people that come close to reaching their full potential, but I feel like Kevin Orie was the opposite. I honestly think his career was as close to the worst case scenario as possible, and I don't mean that as a knock. It's just things didn't quite work out. He rarely got chances to succeed, and in limited time, he was never quite able to put it together at the highest level. Maybe he was only a Quad-A player, but maybe he could have dominated in Japan, or maybe he could have succeeded in the MLB if the circumstances were altered just slightly.

I know his statistics shouldn't earn him a spot this high, but this list is more about intangible feelings than tangible production. And no matter how bad things got, I never stopped believing in Kevin Orie. I always had hope that he would be able to do more, and before 1998, hope was the best thing a Cubs fan could ask for.
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