A matter of misperspective
The 2026 Cubs aren't the 2016 Cubs, and they probably don't need to be
The Cubs, who stink now and might not win another game, have already rattled off two double-digit win streaks and we just hit Mother's Day yesterday. Even with their back-to-back shutout losses to Chuck Norris' Texas Rangers (RIP to his toupee, among other things) they have won 21 of their last 26 games. So it's inevitable that people would start to wonder out loud (sometimes, while walking through Home Depot and getting a lot of stares), "Are the Cubs good enough to win the World Series."
I will admit that whenever that question is raised to me, my first impulse to give a haughty chuckle, and then drop a "No" just dripping with condescension.
The reason for that is simple. We are the first set of Cubs fans in more than four generations who can say that we have firsthand knowledge of what a World Series championship team looks like, and this ain't it.
But the more I think about it, the more I think my perspective is just off. And for this, I blame the Cubs as an organization. We were incredibly fortunate to get to watch a team like the 2016 Cubs. A team built to beat the shit out of everybody, and to leave no doubt. And they spent the regular season absolutely beating the shit out of everybody, and in the postseason they mostly didn't leave any doubt. They were a legitimately great team. But if we weren't fans of what, other than a recent run of lucidity, (mostly going on 11 years now, give or take), was a franchise that didn't know what the fuck it was doing, we'd have more than one great team to judge the current one by.
Are the 2026 Cubs as good as the 2016 Cubs?
