Cubs win! Cubs win! Now what?

We now live in a world where the Cubs are champions

What will replace the Cubs as the epitome of futility? What other Sisyphean entity exists, now that the baseball fans of Chicago are no longer living under a 108-year-old curse?  Pointing to the Indians’ World Series drought seems cruel, and 68 (excuse me, 69) years of futility isn’t nearly as bad as 108; besides, the Indians made it to the World Series twice in the 1990’s, so they remember some good times. 

Game Seven of the 2016 World Series will go down in history.  It didn’t have the walk-off charisma of Mazerowski’s blast in 1960, or the sustained tension of the 1991 Game Seven where Jack Morris pitched 10 innings of shutout ball for the Twins until his team finally scored in the bottom of the 10^th.  But a back-and-forth game that went extra innings, had a rain delay, and ended with a one-run deficit for the losing team, is the stuff of legends. 

One thing winning did was possibly let Cub’s manager Joe Maddon off the hook for his most controversial decision, to use closer Aroldis Chapman for 20 pitches in game six despite having a five-run lead.  Critics said it would make Chapman less effective in game seven, and he gave up hits to the first three batters he faced including a game-tying two run homer.  If the Cubs hadn’t come back to win the game Maddon would have been vilified in the sports media.  Maddon’s continued reliance on Chapman was a sure sign that he had no faith what so ever in his other relievers, so the Cubs have some work to do in the off-season.  You can’t prove that Chapman’s ineffectiveness was the result of his stint in Game Six, but the dots must be connected.  Maddon also had second baseman Javy Baez try to bunt with two strikes and a runner on third; you only do that with a batter who knows how to bunt.

I thought Indians’ manager Terry Francona made a mistake by walking Anthony Rizzo to pitch to Ben Zobrist in the tenth inning.  The logic was irrefutable—with the go-ahead runner on second and first base open, walking Rizzo creates a force out at every base, and the important run was the go-ahead run, not any other.  That is baseball managing 101; plus, I believe that pitcher Bryan Shaw is a groundball pitcher.  The upside is obvious, but the downside is subtle.  Putting another runner on base gives the pitcher less room to maneuver, making him have to be that much more careful.  If (as it happened) the batter gets an extra base hit, you are looking at a multiple run deficit in the bottom of the tenth instead of a one run deficit.  Plus, Zobrist was hitting the bejeezus out of the ball.  Playing the odds to reduce the chances of a single-run scoring but increasing the chances of a multi-run inning works in the bottom of an inning in a tied game, but not the top.

I picked the Cubs to win game seven, mainly because I felt that Francona was going to the well once too often with Cory Kluber on short rest.  Yes, he did well in game four, but generally speaking World Series pitchers on short rest have a significantly higher ERA. We love the narrative of the superhuman pitcher willing his body to perform despite inadequate rest, but for every time that play works there are other times when it blows up in the manager’s face (Matt Harvey of the Mets last year trying to throw a complete game).  Game Seven was like that for Francona.

Let’s face it; by Game Seven it was clear that neither manager had much faith in anyone in their bullpens except their closers.  The Series became a war of attrition where both managers refused to use their mediocre relievers as cannon fodder.  Maddon stuck with Chapman when he was clearly ineffective from overuse (because Maddon didn’t trust the rest of his staff to preserve a five-run lead), and Francona expected Andrew Miller to be lights out even after the Cubs had seen him enough to start figuring out what he was throwing. 

The 2016 Cubs are a super team, or as ESPN personality Tony Kornheiser has been calling them all year “The ’27 Yankees.”  Maybe not quite, but close. They won 103 games, which generally happens only about four times in a decade on average, but given their run differential and lack of “clusterluck” they were the equivalent of a 110 win team.  The only other super teams I can recall since I started following baseball are the 1975-76 Reds and the 1998 Yankees. 

I am not including the 2001 Mariners who won 116 games but lost in the playoffs; as we learned from the Warriors last season, no matter how many games you win, if you lose in the playoffs you’re nothing.  I should also mention the 1970-71 Orioles, which slightly pre-date my having the capacity to follow baseball.  The 1970 squad had three 20-game winners, the 1971 squad had four; plus, great hitters like Frank Robinson and Boog Powell and great fielders like Brooks Robinson and Paul Blair (and my pick for best manager of all time, Earl Weaver).

Will the Cubs and Indians give us a sequel in next year’s World Series?  Unlikely.  But for the first time in over a century, Chicago Cub fans can hopefully say, “Wait ‘til next year!”