The Cleveland Indians finished the regular season with 777 runs scored. That qualified as fifth-most in the majors. Their lineup was more speed than power — they led the American League in steals — but they weren’t exactly the 1959 Go-Go Sox. The club logged over 500 extra-base hits, and they finished fourth in the junior circuit in both wOBA and wRC+.

Ty Van Burkleo deserves much of the credit. Cleveland’s hitting coach for each of the past four seasons, the 53-year-old Van Burkleo espouses an approach built on patience and controlled aggression. There’s an overall philosophy. At the same time, however, he recognizes that each hitter has strengths he needs to optimize.

Van Burkleo shared his views on hitting in two separate conversations. I spoke to him on the eve of the World Series, and again when the team was at Wrigley Field.

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Van Burkleo on why the Indians offense was productive: “As a group — as nine guys in the lineup — everybody competes together. It’s not relying on just one or two guys to carry the load. We’ve had 11 walk-offs and I think they’ve been by nine different guys. Somebody is doing their part every day.

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“More breaking balls!” That’s how Theo Epstein characterized the postseason for Brian Kenny on the latter’s lead-in show before Game Five of the World Series. It’s a notable observation insofar as it’s a little more actual content than you typically get publicly from a high-ranking front-office exec, but it’s also a matter of public record that his team was seeing a ton of breaking balls in the World Series. Dave Cameron, for example, took an excellent look at the subject earlier this week.

What’s interesting about Epstein’s comment, however, is how he was somehow able to remain vague about his point, even as he seemed to be offering something incredibly specific. He suggests there are more breaking balls in the playoffs, sure. But it’s not clear if he’s implying that there are more breaking balls every postseason for every team, or merely that there were more this postseason for his team, or something in between.

This postseason was defined by a transformation in bullpen usage; that’s not up for discussion, really. But it seems possible that pitching mixes themselves also changed this postseason. And while it would be impossible for Andrew Miller to throw 225 innings and strike out nearly 400 batters — the unfathomable numbers you get if you prorate his postseason work to a full season out of the pen — it might be possible for starting pitchers to throw more breaking balls all season. This postseason trend (if it actually exists) could inform the regular season in a real way.

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This is August Fagerstrom’s last piece here. As he announced on Tuesday, he has taken a position with a Major League team, and that organization will now benefit from the insights that we will miss. August wrote this piece before officially leaving, but we wanted to save it for after the World Series storm had calmed down, since it deserved not to get overshadowed by Chicago’s celebration.

What will be remembered about this year’s postseason, for the rest of history, is the Chicago Cubs winning the World Series. It hadn’t happened in 108 years, if you didn’t hear. That’s the big takeaway here. Beyond that: Game Seven. Game Seven was crazy! We’ll be talking about Game Seven for years.

The other part of the equation is the Cleveland Indians, and the story that seems most likely to be remembered about them was how far they got with so relatively little. The team with the super-rotation at the beginning of the season that was left with scraps at the end. Despite missing two of their three best starters in Carlos Carrasco and Danny Salazar, Cleveland held three of baseball’s most threatening lineups in Boston, Toronto, and Chicago to 42 runs in 15 games, good for a 2.69 ERA, while tossing a record-setting five shutouts. They rode Corey Kluber, Andrew Miller, and Cody Allen as far as they could, but even guys like Josh Tomlin and Ryan Merritt (?!) handed the ball off to the Millers and the Allens with a lead more often than not.

Throughout the postseason, every Indians pitcher was quick to mention the game plan, the approach, and the way catcher Roberto Perez attacked the hitters. Part of that is typical athlete speak, sure. Almost always, these guys are going to deflect and give credit to their teammates. But what does that really mean? What goes into a pre-series, or even pre-game scouting report? Who’s the brains behind that operation? How many brains are behind that operation? And what happens when it makes its way out onto the field?
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Cleveland had a great year in 2016, capped by an incredible run to the World Series — a run that fell just a win short, ultimately, of the club’s first championship in nearly 70 years. While Chicago might bask in their glory for a bit — and it would certainly be appropriate for Cleveland to reflect on their fantastic season, as well — it might be a bit more uplifting for Cleveland fans to looks forward to 2017, as long as there’s reason for optimism next year. Rest assured, there’s plenty of reason for optimism next year.

First things first: Cleveland won 94 games in 2016, and there’s no reason to suspect that the season was a fluke fueled by one-run wins or multiple extraordinary performances unlikely to repeat themselves. Their Pythagorean and BaseRuns records both had them exceeding 90 wins. Cleveland absolutely deserved the success they had, and virtually every important piece is set to return for next season. Francisco Lindor, who has emerged as the team’s star and one of the very best players in baseball, will be back and making the major-league minimum. Jose Ramirez solidified himself as a starting third baseman, and even if he can’t replicate his production in 2016, he should still be an above-average contributor. The same is true both for Jason Kipnis and Carlos Santana. Those last three might have all played a little above their expected levels in 2016, but they should still be quite effective next season, as well.

The rotation, weakened in the postseason by injuries, should once again represent a strength. Corey Kluber will be back to anchor the rotation, while Carlos Carrasco and Danny Salazar — who combined for just 283.2 innings in 2016 — will resume their position behind Kluber. Trevor Bauer will return to his role as a fourth starter, where his slightly above-average stats play well. In the fifth spot, Josh Tomlin is back with a salary under $3 million. While his numbers aren’t great, young pitchers like Ryan Merritt and Mike Clevinger tested the waters this year, got some time in the postseason, and provide necessary depth should pitchers get hurt or turn ineffective. Even Zach McAllister could pitch in, as well. The bullpen that was such a strength in the postseason is back, too: Andrew Miller, Cody Allen, and Bryan Shaw are all under contract at reasonable prices, expected to earn around $20 million collectively.

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There are many who have waited their entire life for this moment. They are octogenarians and children, grandparents and great-grandparents and teenagers. For more than a century, the Chicago Cubs were the punchline to an eye-roll-inducing joke. They were haunted by the specters of goats and a man in headphones. The Cubs have seen the fall of the Ottoman Empire, two world wars and a cold one, the advent of television, the atomic bomb, the nuclear family, two passes of Halley’s Comet, and the turning of the century. It has been a long time coming for the North Side of Chicago. And now, the moment has arrived.

For the first time in 108 years, the Cubs won the World Series. The longest championship drought in all of sports was emphatically vanquished once and for all. Chicago came back from a 3-1 deficit to win three games in a row and claim the title, pulling one last rabbit out of their hats and stunning the Cleveland Indians in extra innings.

It was a game that was chaotic enough to exorcise any demons. Fifteen runs scored, one of them on just the fourth pitch of the game when Dexter Fowler sent a ball over the center-field wall for a leadoff home run. Another was on a Javier Baez home run that came after he made two critical fielding errors, and another still when David Ross, 39 years young, took Andrew Miller deep. Just the inning before, two Cleveland runs had scored on a wild pitch that bounced hard off his mask. There were 24 hits, four errors, and one brief extra-inning rain delay.

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Chris Coghlan embraced the challenge of a Game Seven. To the Cubs outfielder, a winner-takes-all affair against a formidable opponent is the ultimate for any athlete.

“You want it as tall as you can stack it,” Coghlan said after Game Six. “You look back at the road, and the adversity faced. You have to stay in the moment, but as a player, you don’t want anything else. Bring it.”

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Were many of the players nervous? That’s hard to know, although I did observe a few different demeanors prior to the game. I saw some smiles, particularly from Francisco Lindor. There were some businesslike expressions and less-casual-than-usual postures. One Indians player struck me as being a little on edge when I encountered him in the dugout prior to batting practice.

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One big story leading into the game concerned the prospect of Corey Kluber facing the same team for the third time in nine days. That meant a lot of familiarity — on both sides — and myriad questions about adjustments. In terms of pitch mix, the Cubs saw a different Kluber in Game Four than they did in Game One.

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The thing about hype is it makes the expectations almost impossible to meet. Hype is what makes you excited for an event, but then it’s up to the event itself to live up to the billing, and the standards can be impossible. Game 7 of a playoff series? That’s a high bar. Game 7 of the World Series? Higher bar still. Game 7 of a World Series featuring the two teams with the longest active title droughts? The hype spirals out of control. The game couldn’t possibly be what you’d want it to be.

That game was what you’d want it to be. Even if you weren’t rooting for the Cubs, you might never see a better baseball game. Maybe you’ve seen games that were as good, but you couldn’t top that, not for the drama, and not for how very Baseball it was. It was a one-run game that went to extra innings. The winning pitcher was the world-class reliever who blew a three-run lead. The losing pitcher wasn’t even supposed to have to pitch. The Cubs jumped out against the Indians’ unhittable ace, who for the first time was left in too long. The Indians clawed back with a two-run wild pitch that got by a catcher inserted specifically to help the pitcher on the mound. That same catcher, who’s now retired, then hit a home run off one of the only relievers who might be better than the Cubs reliever who later blew the save. Both teams used starters in relief. There was a rain delay and a bunt for a strikeout. The last out of the game was made by Michael Martinez. The final go-ahead run was scored by Albert Almora.

Almora scored on Ben Zobrist’s double. That made it 7-6, and Cubs fans were once again able to breathe. In a game packed full of moments, that might have wound up the moment, the moment that set the Cubs on their course. Before that moment, there was a different one. Almora scored on the double. He first had to get himself into position to do so.

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By the time a pitcher gets to October, his body and his mind are headed in different directions. The head can’t stop racing, but the body is battered by six months’ worth of battle. That probably seems intuitive, but it’s actually relevant tonight in a very concrete way: Cleveland right-hander Corey Kluber is once again going to climb the mound on short rest, with body and mind at odds. Here’s the good news for Indians fans, though: while the results of postseason short-rest starts isn’t great, the process — which is to say, the movement and velocity recorded on pitches — suggests that adrenaline trumps all when it comes to postseason ball.

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It was an ugly night for Cleveland for a variety of reasons. First and foremost, they lost Game Six of the World Series. Second, they allowed nine runs. Nine.

Third, Tyler Naquin happened. In a variety of ways. What does that mean, exactly? First, there was this Bull Durham-esque snafu in the first inning.

Kris Bryant had already gone yard with two outs in the first inning. Anthony Rizzo and Ben Zobrist had followed with singles. Addison Russell, as shown above, then poked a very catchable fly ball out to right-center field. We may never know what temporary madness possessed Naquin at this moment. We do know that he didn’t grade out as a very good center fielder this year, nor did possess the most sterling defensive reputation before his ascension to the big leagues.

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You never want to overreact too strongly to what happened the night before. You never want to overreact too strongly to what’s happened in a postseason series, or even an entire postseason. A hallmark of a great manager is often knowing when to ride their guys out and when to take action, and players are so much more than one- or seven- or 20-game samples that it’s rare to see enough in such a short time to reasonably warrant a change.

It’s easy to forget that, per plate appearance, Tyler Naquin was actually Cleveland’s best hitter this year. That’s a real thing that happened, and that occurred over 116 games and 365 plate appearances. We know, for a fact, that Naquin possesses the ability to do great things at the plate, because he is literally the same person that just did great things at the plate. Naquin was a legitimate Rookie of the Year candidate, even favorite, for much of the year, though it’s easy to forget that now, after a rough postseason was punctuated by an even worse Game Six of the World Series.

For the postseason, Naquin’s hitting .190/.227/.286. He’s struck out in over half his plate appearances, and he’s walked once. Again, that’s a nine-game, 23-plate appearance sample. It’s important to always compare that to the 365-plate appearance, 135 wRC+ sample, for context. That doesn’t change the fact that Naquin, most recently, has struggled. Less recently, but still recently, he’s struggled, too. Over the final two months of the regular season, he ran an 83 wRC+, the power he showed in the first half having almost completely disappeared. He hasn’t hit a home run since his infamous pinch-hit, walkoff, inside-the-park homer against the Blue Jays all the way back on August 19. That’s two-and-a-half months without a dinger, and even that one didn’t leave the yard.

And so after last night, a game in which Naquin struck out in both his plate appearances, including Cleveland’s highest-leverage plate appearance of the game, and perhaps more notably was involved in, and possibly was the culprit of the first-inning fly ball mishap that kept the inning alive for the Cubs and led to two runs, plenty of Cleveland fans have called for Naquin to sit Game Seven in favor of Rajai Davis, despite right-hander Kyle Hendricks being on the mound for the Cubs.

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