2016 Has Already Been a Success

“You can’t be bitter over four games when 162 were so special.”  —Wade Boggs

When I was a kid in Guatemala, I asked my dad to buy me a new Nintendo game on his trip to the US. When he came back I was thrilled to see him—but I was also keeping a close eye on that suitcase and wondering when he’d start unpacking.

Finally, he did, and he handed me a package that wasn’t the right size for a Nintendo cartridge. I felt the dread of disappointment strike.

“Here, I got you this. The guy at the store said you would like it,” and he proceeded to hang up his pants and unpack his new books.

It was a VHS tape and yes, I was pissed.

Eventually I ran out of reasons to stay mad and the disappointment passed. Boredom came and one day I popped the tape into the VCR. Might as well give it a shot, I thought. 50 minutes later I sat there transfixed and blown away by the amazing story of the 1990 Red Sox. That quote at the top of this piece? That’s what baseball great Wade Boggs said after his Red Sox team miraculously made the playoffs (against all odds, so to speak) but wound up getting swept by the Philadelphia Athletics in the ALCS.

And I wholeheartedly agree: no team should be bitter over 4 games when 162 were so special.

The 2016 Chicago Cubs had 162 special games of their own. A successful season. You’ll hear a lot of fans and experts say that the regular season means nothing (!). That this season will be a disappointment if the team doesn’t win the World Series. That a team with this much talent and depth needs to win it all or else it will all be for naught.

I respectfully and wholeheartedly disagree, and I think it’s important that we talk about this before the Cubs play their first playoff game.

First off, we need to quote that old Billy Beane line about the playoffs being a crapshoot. It doesn’t matter how good of a team you have or how elite your players are or how quirky/fun your manager is: in a short series (or even a best-of-7 series) anyone can beat anyone. 162 games are enough time to separate the good from the bad (or injured), but a playoff series is a different animal. All you can do is make it to the playoffs as often as you can and give yourself as many opportunities as possible to eventually take home a title.

Which brings me to my next reason: the Cubs have given themselves the opportunity by making it to the post-season—but they’ve gone beyond that. The Cubs won so many games and were so far ahead of every other team in baseball, that they were able to rest their players, line up their rotation exactly how they wanted it, and have the luxury of facing a Wild Card team that just used their ace a couple of days ago.

You made the playoffs? Good.

You made it and have your best pitcher(s) ready to go while the other team has to scramble? Fantastic.

But wait—there’s more. The Cubs got here without trading any of their young, Major League ready players. This was a team that—in the preseason—had trouble figuring out how to get at bats for all the talent it had on the roster. Where would Jorge Soler play? Was Javy Baez ready to contribute? And if so, where would he play? Could Kyle Schwarber play left without looking like a drunken bear? I was one of those people convinced that a trade for some pitching was in order.

Then Kyle Schwarber got hurt and it changed everything. All of the sudden, the team was in need of that additional depth. Baez wound up getting at bats while playing all over the diamond and showing off his ridiculous glove. Soler contributed—when he was healthy. It made it the best non move of the preseason for a team that would need some sort of offense out of their outfield when Jason Heyward could not provide it.

Guess where Cubs left fielders ranked in slugging last season—despite losing Schwarber to injury? Sporting a .487 slugging, the Cubs ranked first (I know, right?). Granted, some of that is due to Kris Bryant being out there on occasion, but it’s also in large part due to Soler and Willson Contreras.

And next year they get Schwarber’s powerful bat back in the lineup—it’s almost like signing a major free agent bat in exchange for nothing.

And yes—the Cubs did trade away their top prospect. 19-year-old shortstop Gleyber Torres has all the makings of a talented Major Leaguer. But he’s 19 years old, slashed .254/.341/.385 in 31 games with the Tampa Yankees (High-A) after the trade, and the Major Leagues are a long, arduous road away for him. It’s hard to minimize this trade by quoting a low slash line in 31 games from a 19-year-old kid, but the Cubs did get a lockdown closer in return. And while it doesn’t appear that closer will help beyond 2016, the team is well covered in the middle infield and there’s plenty of depth in the minor leagues to help fuel any future trades or add to the major league roster depth.

So yes: they traded away their number one prospect, but they got one of the best closers in the game back. It wasn’t like that horrible trade the Diamondbacks made when they acquired Shelby Miller.

Besides graduating guys like Willson Contreras, Albert Almora, and Carl Edwards, Jr. (yay, pitching!), the team still showed signs of more talent coming in the minor leagues despite Torres’ departure. Yes—a huge amount of talent has been brought up to the big-league roster in the past two years—but there’s more on the way. Eloy Jimenez had a huge year offensively and takes over the top spot for Torres (Jimenez, also 19, slashed .329/.369/.532 in A-Ball).

Other guys like Ian Happ, Jeimer Candelario, and Eddy Julio Martinez showed that the organization is still perfectly capable of cranking out more polished bats. The long-awaited arms may finally be headed to Wrigley (or to another team via a trade) with the encouraging progress from the likes of Dylan Cease, Manuel Rondon, and Oscar de la Cruz.

One more thing about Schwarber: it was the lone injury on a team that ranked 4th in lost WAR due to injury (yes, another metric the Cubs are near the top of the leaderboard on). You take Schwarber out of the equation and the Cubs jump up to 2nd place behind the Oakland Athletics. This was an extremely healthy team, which is something worth celebrating.

What’s amazing is that the pitching staff stayed as healthy as it did. The Cubs are the only team in baseball to have five pitchers that started 29 games or more over the course of the season. Mike Montgomery made five starts and no other pitcher made more than one start.

Oh, and let’s not forget the team won 103 games, which is the most they’ve won since 1910. That 1910 squad posted 104 wins and eventually lost to the Phillies in the World Series.

So before game one of the NLDS gets underway and we forget all about the regular season, let’s take a moment to savor the 2016 regular season and how well the Cubs fared. The team won more games than anyone else, they made it to the playoffs, they didn’t mortgage their future chances to keep making it to the playoffs, they were relatively healthy, and they have a leg up on their first-round opponent by virtue of winning their division.

The 2016 is already a success—no matter what happens the rest of the way.

Lead photo courtesy Charles LeClaire—USA Today Sports.