Count on the Cubs to draw the wrong conclusion
There are lessons to be learned from this year's playoffs. The Cubs won't learn the right ones.


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The Arizona D’bags improbable run to the World Series is just about the worst possible outcome for Cubs fans. And no, not because the Cubs finished just one game (and a tiebreaker) behind the D’bags and “that could have been us!” Because you and I both know that couldn’t have been the Cubs.
No, the reason it’s the worst possible outcome is because the Garbage Family That Owns the Cubs™ surely believe the best (and cheapest) path to postseason glory is now 84 wins and the 21st highest payroll in the sport, and even if they don’t believe it, they know that enough Cubs fans will carry that water for them.
To say the Cubs were thisclose to being the D’bags because they nearly earned the very playoff spot Arizona used to fight their way through the National League playoffs is to ignore that the two teams played each other seven times in the season’s final 21 games and the D’bags beat the Cubs in six of those seven games. They were the primary reason the Cubs choked away their playoff spot, as the start of the first series (Arizona won three of four at Wrigley Field) kicked off the 7-14 slog to the end of the season that doomed the Cubs.
I’m sure many in the Cubs organization look at the D’bags and see a nice, cheap path to success to emulate. Why, just how different is Pete Crow-Armstrong than Corbin Carroll anyway?