The Cubs just found out how hard it is to repeat, but there’s still much hope for the future

Source: http://ift.tt/LaVeEM --- Friday, October 20, 2017
A few reflections on what went down in 2017, and what could be ahead for the Cubs. When Theo Epstein and his team took charge of Baseball operations for the Cubs , one of the things they promised to do was to create an organization that could compete every year for a sustained period of time. The idea, of course, is to get into the postseason tournament every year. The more you do that, the more chances you have to win it all. And they have done just that. Three consecutive postseason appearances hadn’t been done by any Chicago Cubs ballclub in 109 years, not since 1906-07-08, and now we have 2015-16-17 to add to that part of franchise history. Just one team each year can be the last team standing. This year’s Dodgers look like last year’s Cubs in that sense, the team that roared through the regular season and has done what was needed in the postseason. This year’s Cubs didn’t quite have enough to repeat, although they did manage to vanquish a team, the Nationals , that was probably a better overall squad. That’s part of the randomness of the postseason. This year’s Cleveland Indians can tell you a bit about that, too. The San Francisco Giants just got finished with a seven-year postseason run (2010-16) in which they won the World Series three times. Now we’d take a run like that, right? The Chicago Blackhawks have made the Stanley Cup playoffs for nine straight years. In that time they’ve had the NHL’s best regular-season recor ...

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