Remember Some Cubs: Mighty Mike Fontenot

The 2008 Chicago Cubs demonstrated just how fun a baseball season can be when everything goes right. Geovany Soto broke out as the team’s starting catcher and won the National League Rookie of the Year Award. Aramis Ramirez, Alfonso Soriano and Derrek Lee provided steady production and star power toward the top of the lineup.

Ryan Dempster’s move to the starting rotation worked out, as he made the All-Star team and finished sixth in the National League Cy Young Award voting. Jim Edmonds was picked up off of the scrap heap and produced a team-high 135 OPS+ (minimum 100 plate appearances). Mark DeRosa hit 21 home runs and solidified himself as a fan favorite.

Despite all of those players, it was the 5’9” utility infielder who led the team’s position players in WAR at Baseball Reference. That’s right: in just 284 plate appearances, Mike Fontenot tied with Soto for the most WAR on the 97-win 2008 Chicago Cubs, at 3.3.

Michael Eugene Fontenot was born on June 9, 1980, in Louisiana. After hitting .556 with 13 home runs during his senior season at Salmen High School, he was drafted in the 21st round of the 1999 MLB Draft, but he opted to attend Louisiana State University instead of beginning his professional career.

This ended up being a wise decision for the small infielder. As a freshman, Fontenot was the everyday second baseman. He hit .353 and broke the LSU freshman record for home runs, with 17. For the curious: this has since been broken by Dylan Crews, who hit 18 home runs during his freshman season in 2021. Crews, notably, was picked second overall by the Washington Nationals in the 2023 MLB Draft.

After winning the College World Series with LSU in 2000, and a stellar sophomore season, Fontenot was taken 19th overall in 2001 by the Baltimore Orioles. He would go on to play three minor-league seasons for the Orioles before being traded to the Cubs in the offseason between 2004 and 2005. In hindsight, Jim Hendry deserves a ton of credit for getting something substantial (Fontenot and Jerry Hairston Jr.) in exchange for Sammy Sosa, in a February trade wherein he seemed to have no leverage whatsoever.

Fontenot would go on to make his major-league debut in 2005, though it wasn’t until 2007 when he established himself on the roster. Following an injury to Ramírez, Fontenot was made the team’s starting second-baseman, reuniting him with former LSU teammate Ryan Theriot, the starting shortstop. In June of that year, Fontenot hit .397, though his production for the season cratered thereafter, as he hit just .214 the rest of the way.

His flash-in-the-pan performance in June was enough for the Cubs to keep him around as a utility player for the 2008 season, and that paid off handsomely. As a frequent pinch-hitter and the second baseman when DeRosa slid out to right field, Fontenot hit .305/.395/.514, which earned him the moniker Little Babe Ruth, as coined by Ron Santo. As we already said, he led the team in WAR at Baseball Reference. At Fangraphs, his 3.1 WAR was fourth among the Cubs position-player group, behind Ramírez, DeRosa, and Soriano. Given that Fontenot had about half the plate appearances of those guys, this is still impressive.

His 134 wRC+ bested everybody else who amassed at least 100 plate appearances, other than Edmonds. No matter how many times I have verified that stat, I still have a hard time believing it was true. Mike Fontenot and Jim Edmonds were, statistically, the Cubs' two best hitters in 2008. On a club loaded with stars who spent half a decade or more making eight-figure salaries for the Cubs, two guys who I think people often forget were even on that team were indispensable. (Side note: shoutout to Micah Hoffpauir, who had 80 plate appearances and produced a 143 wRC+ that year. He won’t get his own column, so consider this note a remembrance of him.)

Given his production in a part-time role in 2008, Fontenot was awarded the everyday second base job for the Cubs in 2009, but he was never able to match the production he had that magical summer. Despite a decent start to the season, he would finish the year with a batting line of .236/.301/.377. Fontenot resumed his utility duties in 2010, until he was eventually traded to the Giants for Evan Crawford in August of that season.

Of course, Fontenot won a World Series later that year with the Giants, and he would go on to play small parts of two more seasons: one with the Giants in 2011, and one with the Phillies in 2012. After playing the 2013 and 2014 seasons in the minor leagues with the Tampa Bay Rays, Fontenot finished playing professional baseball.

Mike Fontenot, despite his size, is not an underdog story. He was a first-round draft pick, after all. He does, in my opinion, represent what many, myself included, love about baseball. The fact that a 5’9” utility infielder can have one magical season, and be one of the best hitters on a 97-win team filled with All-Stars, shows that no matter how many numbers are crunched, and how much analysis happens, sometimes, in baseball, randomness occurs. Call it luck, or call it a short-lived prime, but the 2008 Cubs--one of the best Cubs teams of this century--would not have been who they were without Mike Fontenot.

What are your favorite memories of Fontenot?

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