Cubs “One Hit” Wonders – #8 – Henry Rodriguez

Taking a look back at the 10 players who had one really good or great year in their career while they were with the Cubs.

Year: 1999
WAR: 3.2
+1.6 WAR = 50.0% Improvement

One year removed from a surprising wild card appearance, 1999 turned out to be a disappointment. The team finished last in the NL Central at 67-95, and Jim Riggleman was fired after the season. Sammy Sosa had another big year, with 63 homers and 141 RBIs, and Mark Grace put up 3.8 WAR. But most of the rest of the lineup was mediocre or worse, and the pitching staff was awful.

One minor exception was Henry Rodriguez, who had the best year of his career, with a 3.2 WAR, slashing .304/.381/.544. He was picked up by the Cubs before the 1988 season, and had consistently been a good power hitter, going for 36, 26 and 31 home runs the previous 3 seasons. And he was an All-Star and 17th in the MVP voting in 1996 with the Expos. But from a WAR perspective, 1999 was by far his peak.

I can only see a few reasons why:

• His on base percentage was a career best. So in addition to his power, he had an almost 50 point increase in OBP over his career high.
• He cut down on his strikeouts to 113 in ’98 and ’99 coming down form 160 and 149 in ’96 and ’97 respectively.
• His defense was very bad in 1996 and 1998, but “less bad” in 1999.

Alas, Rodriguez saw his production decrease significantly in 2000, with a -0.5 aggregate WAR, and he was traded away to the Marlins for Ross Gload. He players a total of 25 games (almost all as a pinch hitter) in 2001 and 2002 with the Yankees and Expos before leaving MLB.

He should not be confused with two other players named Henry Rodriguez, who have been in the league since the Cubs’ 1999 Rodriguez retired:

One other pitched for the Cubs.

The other pitched briefly for the Reds

Rodriguez once hit into a triple play for the Cubs – although it probably would have been overturned if replay had been available. The Umpire, Joe Brinkman, didn’t seem to really care.

He was included in a series of articles by Cubbies Crib about underrated Cubs hitters in 2020: https://cubbiescrib.com/2020/05/25/cubs-five-underrated-hitters-history/

On Tap Sports also did a post on Rodriguez in 2020:
https://ontapsportsnet.com/mlb/where-are-they-now-what-happened-to-henry-rodriguez/