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.

In case you missed it:
Introduction
#47 - Matt Karchner
#46 - Jose Nieves
#45 - Rodney Myers
#44 - Justin Speier
#43 - Tony Fossas
#42 - Kennie Steenstra
#41 - Chris Haney
#40 - Bob Patterson
#39 - Pedro Valdes
#38 - Derrick White
#37 - Ben Van Ryn
#36 - Terrell Lowery
#35 - Don Wengert
#34 - Kurt Miller
#33 - Jason Maxwell
#32 - Kevin Foster
#31 - Mike Morgan
#30 - Felix Heredia 
#29 - Jeff Blauser
#28 - Jason Hardtke
#27 - Dave Stevens
#26 - Manny Alexander
#25 - Marc Pisciotta

The 47 Best Players from the 1998 Chicago Cubs - #28 Jason Hardtke

28. Jason Hardtke
Jason Hardtke was a utility infielder who didn't quite have the skills to play shortstop. The latter part of that sentence really limited Hardtke's potential. Had he been able to play shortstop, he may have gotten more of a chance to prove himself at the major league level. Unfortunately, Hardtke's time in the big show was sporadic and limited.

1998 was Hardtke's third straight season with major league experience, the first two with the New York Mets. He spent the majority of the year at AAA, playing for the Iowa Cubs where he sprayed the ball all over the field with a .288/.361/.453 line.

His time in Chicago was less impressive as he failed to record a single extra base hit leading to a very empty .238 average. And although he only had two RBI on the season, he used one of those to make a huge impact.

The Cubs were in a battle with the Florida Marlins. Legendary aces Mark Clark and Brian Meadows were having one of their world-famous pitching duels. The Marlins broke through in the fourth inning when perennial All-Star snub, Todd Dunwoody, led off the inning with a double before Cliff Floyd knocked him in for a one-run lead.

The Cubs refused to go down easy as in the sixth inning, Cubs legend, Brant Brown, took Meadows deep to tie the game. After that, the runs stopped as each starter lasted eight innings while giving up just a single run. The Cubs turned to Terry Adams who immediately walked Gregg Zaun to start off the inning. Craig Counsell bunted Zaun over to second base to put a runner in scoring position with just one out. The Marlins turned to pinch hitter Ryan Jackson, but he was no match for Adams as he struck out in his lone at bat. Still, this led to Dunwoody. Somehow, possibly by an act of God, Adams induced a ground out from the Marlins stud.

This led to the bottom of the ninth. Felix Heredia was tasked with taking over for Meadows. He wasted no time in making the home town crowd sweat when he struck out early game hero, Brant Brown, with a pitch that froze him with nothing but a bat on his shoulder and a look of dejection in his eyes. But things turned around with the next batter as Mickey Morandini managed an infield hit. This was followed by the big slugger, Sammy Sosa, improbably also getting an infield hit. The Marlins chose not to challenge Mark Grace and intentionally walked the bases loaded instead.

The Cubs sent Terrell Lowery up to the plate, but the Marlins countered with stud reliever, Jay Powell. This led the Cubs to counter the counter and send up who? You guessed it, Jason Hardtke, up to the plate. In what was surely a battle for the ages, Hardtke eventually got the better of Powell as he singled up the middle to drive home the winning run.

Hardtke played about six more weeks before the Cubs sent him back to Iowa. He would never make the major leagues again. Hardtke is an example of when a stat line doesn't tell the whole story. Clutch may or may not be a real thing, but when the Cubs needed him, Hardtke came through when it mattered most. In a year where the Cubs needed every win they could get, it's important to remember the contributions of guys like Hardtke that helped lead to such a magical season.

In case you missed it:
Introduction
#47 - Matt Karchner
#46 - Jose Nieves
#45 - Rodney Myers
#44 - Justin Speier
#43 - Tony Fossas
#42 - Kennie Steenstra
#41 - Chris Haney
#40 - Bob Patterson
#39 - Pedro Valdes
#38 - Derrick White
#37 - Ben Van Ryn
#36 - Terrell Lowery
#35 - Don Wengert
#34 - Kurt Miller
#33 - Jason Maxwell
#32 - Kevin Foster
#31 - Mike Morgan
#30 - Felix Heredia 
#29 - Jeff Blauser

The 47 Best Players from the 1998 Chicago Cubs - #30 Felix Heredia

30. Felix Heredia
When it comes to Felix Heredia, I can't separate him from the heartbreaking trade that got him here. As I have probably mentioned a couple dozen times by now, the Cubs bullpen was absolutely terrible. At the trade deadline, the Cubs had to do anything they could to make things happen in the bullpen. So they traded one of my favorite Cubs, Kevin Orie (along with Justin Speier) in order to acquire Felix Heredia.

I was heartbroken. I loved Orie, despite him somehow performing worse than the Cubs bullpen did in 1998, I still believed. And to only get Heredia in return? A guy with an abysmal 5.49 ERA? How could the Cubs do this to me?

As bad as I thought the trade was, the Cubs needed to do anything they could to help the bullpen, and Kevin Orie was not going to help that team in 1998. In August, Heredia's first month with the team, he was doing everything he could to make me hate him. On August 27, his ERA rose to 6.97, and I cursed him every time he entered the game.

Somehow, on August 28, he turned things around. His ERA went down to 6.75, then 6.55, 6.35, and it just kept dropping. He had 15 appearances over the next month and didn't allow a single run, dropping his ERA to a totally acceptable 4.08. He even gave the Cubs a scoreless 1/3 of an inning in the playoff elimination game against the Giants. He was the hottest relief arm on the Cubs staff.

So it was no surprise when he came in during Game 1 of the NLDS with a runner on and no outs and the Cubs down by just two runs. He manged to get an out on a failed bunt attempt before walking the next two batters. After the bases were loaded, the Cubs went to trusted relief specialist, Matt Karchner, who promptly gave up a grand slam. The Cubs would not come back to win that game, and Heredia would not pitch again in the playoffs.

Heredia would never relive that September magic but stayed with the Cubs for three more years of painful performances where he recorded 4.85, 4.76, and 6.17 ERAs. The Cubs sent him to the Blue Jays in 2002 in a trade for Alex Gonzalez and managed a 3.61 ERA. Then, he was even better in 2003, putting up a 3.00 ERA for the Reds before being traded to the Yankees and putting up a 1.20 ERA in 15 innings while striking out 2.4 batters per 9 innings.

It rightfully fell apart in 2004 where his ERA was back over 6.00, and then he would pitch just 2.2 innings after that year before bouncing around the minors and various international leagues until 2008 when he retired. Although he came up known as El Gato Flaco, The Skinny Cat, he ended his career with a different nickname, The Run Fairy. He wasn't bad enough to truly earn that nickname, and he was definitely better than this low of a spot on this list, but much like I learned when the Cubs traded away Kevin Orie, life isn't fair sometimes.

In case you missed it:
Introduction
#47 - Matt Karchner
#46 - Jose Nieves
#45 - Rodney Myers
#44 - Justin Speier
#43 - Tony Fossas
#42 - Kennie Steenstra
#41 - Chris Haney
#40 - Bob Patterson
#39 - Pedro Valdes
#38 - Derrick White
#37 - Ben Van Ryn
#36 - Terrell Lowery
#35 - Don Wengert
#34 - Kurt Miller
#33 - Jason Maxwell
#32 - Kevin Foster
#31 - Mike Morgan

The 47 Best Players from the 1998 Chicago Cubs - #44 Justin Speier

44. Justin Speier
Justin Speier was selected in the 55th round in the 1995 MLB Draft. Even if you only took his contributions to the 1998 Cubs, which was one appearance for an inning and a third, you'd have to be impressed with the outcome. But Speier went on to pitch for another 11 years for various teams after 1998, which may make him the greatest 55th round draft pick in history.

And his contributions for that 1998 team did not end with that single appearance where he gave up two runs. He was also packaged in a deal with Kevin Orie and Todd Noel for Steve Hoff, and most importantly, Felix Heredia who would go on to solidify the bullpen for the Cubs at the end of the season.

He was more of a middling reliever playing for the Marlins, Braves, Indians, and Rockies before heading north of the border to the Toronto Blue Jays. There, he switched to a strict maple syrup diet and had the best years of his career. He then signed a free agent with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim where the maple syrup carried him to one more good year. But the LA lifestyle got to him, he switched to an avocado diet, and his ERA doubled for his final two seasons in the majors.

Would you care for some Justin Speier highlights? Because I am about to blow your socks off with some Justin Speier highlights.


Wait, you didn't want highlights from his wedding? Oh...I did not expect that reaction. But if you watched the video, he seemed like such a happy guy. I couldn't find out whether they are still married, but I sure hope they are. Anyway, to please the people who want highlights of him on a field, here you go:


Oh, you actually want to see him playing in a game? Fine, here goes my last video with him striking out Minnesota Twins great, Jason Kubel, with a sick pitch.


The internet has WAY too many videos these days. But seriously, I think Justin Speier has the worst collection of highlight videos of any player with 12 years of MLB experience. The only other worthwhile video was him yelling at Mike Scioscia. But it was an impressive career nonetheless, and it all started with his experience with the 1998 Chicago Cubs.

In case you missed it:
Introduction
#47 - Matt Karchner
#46 - Jose Nieves
#45 - Rodney Myers