The Best Players in Chicago Cubs History, Position by Position

By 4Baseball Staff · November 5, 2026 · 13 min read

An all-time Chicago Cubs team built from club career leaders, awards and Hall of Famers, with the criteria stated and the close calls argued. See who makes the lineup, the rotation and the bullpen.

Building an all-time team for the Chicago Cubs is harder than it sounds, because the franchise has played in 150 seasons of the historical record (1876 through 2025) and the best players come from three very different baseballs. There is the nineteenth-century game of Cap Anson, the dead-ball game of Mordecai Brown and Frank Chance, and the long middle stretch of Wrigley Field sluggers from Hack Wilson to Sammy Sosa. A fair team has to take players from all of them without pretending that a .331 average in 1880 and a .331 average in 1930 mean the same thing.

The short answer is a lineup of Gabby Hartnett, Cap Anson, Ryne Sandberg, Ron Santo, Ernie Banks, Billy Williams, Hack Wilson and Sammy Sosa, with a rotation led by Mordecai Brown and Fergie Jenkins. The rest of this article explains how that team was chosen, why each close call went the way it did, and what the numbers cannot tell you.

The rules for this team

Every choice below follows the same four tests, applied in this order. First, club production: the totals are only what a player did while wearing a Cubs uniform, not what he did over a whole career. That matters for Greg Maddux, Pete Alexander and Lou Brock, who did much of their best work elsewhere. Second, peak and length together: a player who gave the club 15 good seasons usually beats one who gave it five great ones, but a historic peak can overcome a short stay. Third, honors that the record can verify: Most Valuable Player awards, Cy Young Awards, Hall of Fame election, and the number of seasons spent with the club. Fourth, a single position per player, so nobody is counted twice, and a player is put where he spent his best years.

The historical record, which supplies every figure here, has no wins above replacement. It also has no defensive metrics for most of baseball history and no way to adjust a nineteenth-century batting line for its context. Those gaps shape the verdicts below. Where the data are silent, the article says so rather than guessing.

One more caution about the early years. The club was called the White Stockings from 1876 to 1889, the Colts from 1890 to 1897 and the Orphans from 1898 to 1902 before becoming the Cubs in 1903. The Cubs franchise includes all of that history, so an all-time Cubs team can include players who never wore the name. If you want the full story of those eras, the history of the Chicago Cubs covers them one by one.

The lineup at a glance

The table below gives the starting eight with the headline figures from their time with the club. HR is home runs, H is hits and the seasons column counts how many years each man played for the franchise.

Seven of the eight were elected to the Hall of Fame, and the eighth, Sosa, has the most home runs in club history. That sentence deserves one qualification. Sosa received 71 votes of 569 cast in 2013, his first year on the writers' ballot, and never received more than 73 votes in any year before his ten years of eligibility ended after the 2022 vote. His case rests on the home-run total, the 1998 MVP and the Cubs record, and it is clouded by the era in which he hit them.

Catcher: Gabby Hartnett

Hartnett played 19 seasons for the Cubs, and he is the only catcher on the club's list of home-run leaders, with 231 in a Cubs uniform. He won the National League MVP in 1935, the year the Cubs won the pennant. His best single season at the plate was 1930, when he hit 37 home runs, drove in 122 runs and batted .339, a line that would make him a lineup centerpiece at any position, though his 37 homers were not even the club's best total that year.

The case for Hartnett is partly about catching itself. A catcher of the 1920s and 1930s played behind the plate with minimal protective gear, and his 1,990 career games, nearly all of them behind the plate, are a durable total for any era. He hit .297 over his whole career, with 396 doubles. His 1935 average was .344, and in 1937 he batted .354 in 110 games. Those would be good hitting numbers for a first baseman, which is what makes them extraordinary for a catcher.

The alternative a modern reader may think of is Willson Contreras, who caught for the club in the years around its 2016 championship. His totals do not approach Hartnett's in length or peak. The historical record does not record pitch framing or game calling, so Hartnett's reputation for handling pitchers cannot be checked here, and this article does not lean on it.

First base: Cap Anson

Anson was the first big star of the franchise and, by raw counting totals, the greatest. He leads the Cubs in hits with 3,012, in runs batted in with 1,880 and in runs scored with 1,722, and he did it over 22 seasons from 1876 to 1897. His .331 average with the club is second only to Riggs Stephenson among Cubs with at least 3,000 at-bats. He also managed the team for most of that stretch, finishing with 1,283 wins and 932 losses in 2,258 games, which is the longest managerial stint in franchise history by a wide margin.

The honest objection is context. Anson played in the 1870s, 1880s and 1890s, when the ball, the pitching distance, the fielders' gloves and the competition were all different from anything that came later, and the historical record gives no way to adjust for that. A batting average earned against a pitcher who threw from a shorter distance with less specialized fielding behind him cannot be set directly beside a 1930 average. He also played at a time when Black players were shut out of the major leagues, which means the competition he faced was drawn from only part of the available talent; the parallel story is told in the history of the Negro leagues.

If you refuse to give Anson the position because of that, the fallback is a modern first baseman. Mark Grace had 2,201 hits and 1,004 RBI over 13 seasons, with a .308 average, and Anthony Rizzo, who hit 242 home runs for the club from 2012 to 2021, was the first baseman for the team that won the 2016 World Series. Either is a defensible choice. Neither beats Anson on the totals, so Anson stays.

Second base: Ryne Sandberg

Sandberg is the easiest call on the infield. His 15 seasons with the club produced 2,385 hits, 282 home runs, 1,316 runs scored and 344 stolen bases. The 1984 MVP award was his, in the season that took the Cubs to their first division title and to a playoff series that they lost to San Diego, two games to three. No other Cubs second baseman combines that much power with that much speed.

Sandberg's rivals are old-timers. Johnny Evers played second for the club for 12 seasons and is in the Hall of Fame as part of the famous double-play trio, and Billy Herman spent 11 seasons with the Cubs and hit .309 for them. Their cases lean on defense and on team success, which the historical record cannot fully measure. A newspaper poem written around 1910 made Tinker, Evers and Chance the most famous double-play combination in the game's literature, and that fame is real, but fame is not the same as production.

If the franchise's best hitter at the position is the criterion, Sandberg wins easily. If fielding were the criterion, the comparison would need data that this article does not have.

Third base: Ron Santo

Santo spent 14 seasons with the Cubs and hit 337 home runs, drove in 1,290 runs and drew 1,071 walks, second only to Stan Hack's 1,092 on the club list. He was elected to the Hall of Fame by the Golden Era committee in December 2011, a year after his death, receiving 15 of 16 votes, having spent his writers' ballot years from 1980 to 1998 short of election.

Santo's chief rival at the position is Stan Hack. Hack played from 1932 to 1947, had 2,193 hits and led the club in walks, and he deserves a place on the bench for it. In a straight comparison, Santo hit for more power by a wide margin, and he has the Hall of Fame election that Hack never received. Anyone who prefers a high-on-base, low-power third baseman can pick Hack without apology.

Among recent players, Kris Bryant won the 2016 MVP and the 2015 Rookie of the Year award, and his case is shorter and cleaner than the others: he played for the club from 2015 into 2021, but his totals do not reach Santo's. Bryant is the closest thing to a modern challenger, and he had too few seasons here to win the argument.

Shortstop: Ernie Banks

Banks is the face of the franchise for many readers. He hit 512 home runs for the Cubs, the second-highest total in club history behind Sosa, and 2,583 hits, second only to Anson. He won the MVP in 1958 and again in 1959, both as a shortstop, which is a rare feat for a player at that position. He also won a Gold Glove in 1960. Later in his career he moved to first base, which leaves the shortstop position open to a purist who wants Banks at first and Joe Tinker at short.

This article puts Banks at shortstop for a plain reason: that is where his MVP seasons were played, and the position is the scarcest for power. A franchise whose alternatives at the position include Tinker, with 304 steals, and Bill Dahlen, with 286, is a franchise that did not have another shortstop who hit like Banks. If the team needs first base help, Anson fills it, which is one reason the lineup works.

One complication is that Banks played 19 seasons for a club that never reached the postseason in his time. The historical record shows the lack of October games, not the cause, and a stat line cannot be turned into a verdict about leadership.

The outfield: Williams, Wilson and Sosa

Left field: Billy Williams. Williams won the Rookie of the Year award in 1961 and played 16 seasons for the club, collecting 2,510 hits, 392 home runs and 1,353 RBI. He is among the club's top five in each of hits, home runs, RBI and runs, which is a rare kind of balance, and he is in the Hall of Fame. Only Banks and Anson have more hits.

Center field: Hack Wilson. Wilson played six seasons for the club, and his 1930 season is still one of the most famous individual years in the sport: 56 home runs, 191 runs batted in and a .356 average. His totals with the club were 190 home runs and 769 RBI over six seasons, and his .322 average with the franchise is fifth among Cubs with at least 3,000 at-bats. He was elected to the Hall of Fame much later, through a committee, after years of falling short on the writers' ballot. The center field slot is a weak one for the franchise, so Wilson's peak wins by default; Kiki Cuyler, who hit .325 for the club over eight seasons and is also a Hall of Famer, is the bench alternative.

Right field: Sammy Sosa. The Cubs leader in home runs with 545 and third in runs batted in with 1,414, Sosa won the 1998 MVP award in a year when he and Mark McGwire pursued the single-season home-run record. The doubts about his era are real, and a team chosen on character would perhaps put Andre Dawson, who won the 1987 MVP award for a last-place club, in right field. This team chooses on production, and Sosa's production is the largest.

The rotation: five starters across five eras

Here is the problem with pitchers from different eras: Brown's career ERA with the Cubs was 1.80, a figure no modern starter has any realistic chance of approaching. In 1906 Brown went 26-6 with a 1.04 ERA, which is not a misprint in the database. The comparison across eras needs adjustment, and the historical record provides none. The ranking below therefore uses a mix of volume, rate and peak, and accepts that it is partly a judgment call.

Brown's six seasons from 1906 to 1911 are the reason he leads. In 1908, the year the Cubs won their second consecutive World Series, he went 29-9 with a 1.47 ERA, and he won 27 games in 1909 with a 1.31 ERA. Jenkins is the second choice because he was both durable and consistent, with six consecutive 20-win seasons from 1967 to 1972, and his 2,038 strikeouts lead the club.

Maddux is the third starter, and the choice is the most argued. He won the 1992 Cy Young Award with a 20-11 record and a 2.18 ERA, then left for Atlanta and won three more in a row. A reader could fairly say that Cubs fans saw only part of the finished pitcher, since his greatest run came elsewhere. But 1,305 strikeouts and 10 seasons in Chicago are real, and the sheet counts them. Root's selection as the fourth starter is a tribute to longevity: he pitched in more games than any Cub and won 201, more than any other pitcher in club history.

The fifth slot is the real argument. Alexander won 27 games in 1920 with a 1.91 ERA, striking out 173, but the Cubs got only part of his career, and his Cubs ERA climbed above 3.00 after 1920. Kerry Wood, the 1998 Rookie of the Year, has 1,470 strikeouts for the franchise, Rick Reuschel has 1,367 and Kyle Hendricks has 1,259 in the 2014-2024 years, and any of the three could take the spot. Jake Arrieta won the 2015 Cy Young Award in a single stretch of excellence, which counts, but he is short on seasons.

The bullpen and the bench

Relief pitching is a modern specialty, so the bullpen is the shortest part of the team. Lee Smith leads the Cubs with 180 saves over eight seasons and is in the Hall of Fame. Bruce Sutter won the Cy Young Award in 1979 and saved 133 games in five seasons before leaving, which gives him the best peak. Carlos Marmol has 117 saves and 483 games. A closer for this team would be Smith, with Sutter as the setup man who bridges the era gap.

The bench is a useful way to show who just missed. Stan Hack (third base) and Mark Grace (first base) are the obvious infield reserves. Kiki Cuyler and Andre Dawson are outfield reserves. Billy Herman, Johnny Evers and Joe Tinker give a second-base and shortstop backup who also make the team's defense better on paper. Frank Chance, the player-manager of the dynasty, led the club with 402 stolen bases and ran the team to 768 wins against 389 losses, a winning percentage that is the best of any Cubs manager with more than a thousand games. Chance managed 1,178 games for the club, which makes the comparison fair.

The manager of the all-time team is a harder pick than any of the players. Anson won the most games, Charlie Grimm has the second-most games managed, and Chance has the best percentage. A fair answer is Chance, because the early-1900s teams that he ran were the best in franchise history by winning percentage, with 116 wins in 1906 and a World Series title in 1907 and 1908. For those teams, see the best Chicago Cubs seasons and every October run.

What a different set of criteria would change

Suppose the standard were a whole career, not club production. Maddux and Alexander would move up, and Lou Brock, who played only four seasons for the Cubs, would still be left off. Suppose the standard were peak alone. Wilson and Brown would be safe, but Anson and Williams would lose ground and Wood would deserve a long look for his 1998 season.

The park and the competition matter too. Wrigley Field has been the Cubs' home since 1916 and is described in the Wrigley Field ballpark guide; a park whose wind can help or hurt home runs from one day to the next distorts any hitting record, and the historical record does not record weather. National League Central rivals such as the Cincinnati Reds, Pittsburgh Pirates and Milwaukee Brewers have their own histories to set beside this one. And the Cubs' record is a reminder that great players do not guarantee October success: of the club's 17 pennants, only three ended in a World Series title, in 1907, 1908 and 2016, a record described in the history of the World Series.

Common questions

Why is Greg Maddux not the ace? The question is how much of his career the Cubs got. He pitched 10 seasons for the club and won the 1992 Cy Young Award in one of them, but his greatest run was in Atlanta from 1993 to 1995. With the Cubs he is third behind Brown and Jenkins.

Is Hack Wilson really the center fielder? His Cubs career lasted six seasons, and the alternatives, such as Cuyler, were mostly right fielders. The slot is the weakest in the lineup.

Do the Negro Leagues matter for this list? The historical record through 2025 includes Negro leagues statistics from 1920 to 1948 as major-league data, but no Negro leagues player appears on the Cubs career leaders because those players did not play for the franchise. The effect is on the competition: for many decades the Cubs drew their players from only part of the talent available.

Where to go next

For the full story of the franchise, start with the history of the Chicago Cubs and the best Chicago Cubs seasons and every October run. Today's club is on the Cubs team page, the park is on the Wrigley Field page, and the news is gathered in the Cubs topic page. If you disagree with the lineup, you are in good company, and the leaders page has the numbers to argue with.