According to Baseball-Reference, the Cub player most similar to Bob Uecker is Koyie Hill, the Cubs backup catcher to Geovany Soto from 2008-2012. (He was also backup catcher to Michael Barrett in 2007).
Fun facts about Koyie Hill
- Koyie Hill is second ALL-TIME for worst Offensive Runs to end a career. (source)
- In 1999, Hill played as the second baseman for Team USA. In the games, he totaled a .284 batting average, 3 home runs, and 21 RBI. (source: Wikipedia. I cannot find an original source on these Team USA stats) He never played second base in the Majors.
- During his playing career he severed two fingers while sawing wood at home with his eight-month-pregnant wife.
- Why did the Cubs start Koyie Hill so much? Desipio.com has this little insight about Hill: “After games the media would ask him about pitch selection and he’d talk about how he likes to hang out with the next day’s starting pitcher in the outfield during batting practice talking about the other team’s lineup and how to attack them. What a novel idea. Koyie Hill was making [starting catcher] Michael Barrett look bad. And Michael was making it easy.”
I should make a blog post about every team’s player who is most similar to Bob Uecker.