The Cubs aren't close

The World Series was pretty much amazing from the first inning of game one to the 11th inning of game seven, and one conclusion could be drawn from it. "Hey, maybe you don't need to spend like the Dodgers to have a good chance to beat them."

I'm sure that's the conclusion drawn in the offices of the Chicago Cubs today. And, as usual that would be the wrong conclusion.

First, it assumes that the Cubs are more like the Toronto Blue Jays than they are.

The Cubs lost in the divisional round to the Brewers, a team who boat raced them to the division title during the regular season. The Brewers were so completely overmatched and overwhelmed by the Dodgers in the NLCS that they never made a real series out of it. Unless averaging one run per game in a four game sweep is making a series out of it.

The Blue Jays scored twice as many runs as the Brewers did in total against the Dodgers in the sixth inning of the first game of the World Series.

The World Series was played on a level that the Cubs couldn't fathom much less compete at. The Blue Jays' tragic near miss (they found out what it would have felt like if the Cubs had gone on to lose game seven in 2016 after the Rajai Davis homer) doesn't somehow bring them back closer to the level that the Cubs are content to play at. It's just proof that if you really want to win something, it helps to be at least as good as the team you are trying to beat, and even then, it might not work.

That's actually the conclusion Tommy, and Jeddy and Carter-y(?) will take from the World Series. "Why bother to spend $40 million more on payroll than us like the Blue Jays do and find out it still isn't enough?"