An A’s fan’s takeaways from the 2016 World Series

The 2016 baseball season is over, and for the first time in 108 years the Chicago Cubs are the champions. Back to the Future II was only off by one year. The playoffs have been tough to the Oakland A’s in the last couple decades, but at least I was alive for the team’s most recent title, so I can’t even imagine the feeling of waiting over a century like Cubs fans have. Congrats to Chicago!!

As an A’s fan, here are the Oakland-related things I will take away from this series:

A lot of these observations are going to have to do with former A’s who played big roles, but let’s start on the happiest possible note with Coco Crisp. With his time in Oakland winding down, the A’s more or less gave him to a playoff team so that he could have one more shot at a ring. He didn’t have a great year overall, but he’s still more than capable of having big moments, and those are the stuff that playoff success is made of.

He ended up going 7-for-26 with a pair of homers for the Indians, including a homer that proved to be the game-winner in Game 3 against Boston, a pinch-hit RBI single to plate the only run in a 1-0 Game 3 victory against Chicago, and a pair of hits in Game 7 against the Cubs. It was awesome to see Coco shine on the biggest stage!

And how about Rajai Davis? He was hitless in the AL portion of the playoffs and hadn’t done much against the Cubs, but in Game 7 he was darn near the hero twice. When he stood in against Chapman, representing the tying run if only somehow the slappy leadoff man could homer off the flamethrowing super-closer, did anyone else get visions of his walk-off grand slam off Sean Doolittle in 2014? But no, I thought, that kind of randomness doesn’t happen twice, right? And then it did.

Granted, Chapman hadn’t been untouchable like Andrew Miller — he’d already blown two other saves in these playoffs. But Rajai was as unlikely a pick as anyone to beat him, and then he doubled down by driving in another run in the 10th in Cleveland’s final comeback attempt. After seeing two former A’s leadoff men become World Series heroes, I have to assume Billy Burns will spark the 2021 ... I dunno, Pirates? ... toward glory.

But alas, even with Coco & Raj, Cleveland lost. And the specific nature of their loss brings one thing to mind for many Oakland fans. The Golden State Warriors held a 3-1 lead in the NBA Finals last season before the Cleveland Cavaliers used a mixture of good play and LeBron whining about things to come back and steal the title. For months, we’ve had to hear all about the embarrassment of the blown 3-1 lead. And now, later that very year, the same thing happened right back to Cleveland as the Indians failed to seal the deal. Sports can be poetic sometimes.

The joke’s still on us, though, because the Indians had a great year and the A’s were in last place. But one thing that was especially tough to watch was Jon Lester charging toward another title for the Cubs. When the A’s made their now-infamous trade of Yoenis Cespedes for Lester, they were adding a pitcher with a long and excellent playoff record and two rings. It’s easy to be angry about the loss of such a beloved player as Cespedes, and I still agree that I personally wouldn’t have made the trade, but it’s often forgotten how enormous of an addition Lester was. And then in his one big chance here, he was only good for seven innings when the A’s asked for eight, and the gamble busted.

And now, two years later, he did for his new team exactly what we hoped he’d do here -- a 2.02 ERA in six games, quality outings and team wins in four of his five starts, a pair of Game 1 victories, co-MVP of the NLCS, and a mini-Bumgarner performance in Game 7 with three innings of solid relief. This is why the A’s wanted him that summer. Oh, what could have been.

The same goes for Ben Zobrist. The A’s picked him up after the 2014 fire sale, to much fanfare here on Athletics Nation. He was the kind of underappreciated superstar we deserved, but apparently not the one we needed right then. He’s now won both of the World Series that have taken place since the A’s acquired him, for two different teams, neither of which are the A’s.

And he wasn’t just a bystander, either — he was a consistent force for the Royals in the playoffs last year, and he was the World Series MVP for the Cubs. It’s easy to be happy for him regardless of the uniform, but dang, why couldn’t it have been the green and gold? At least we got Sean Manaea out of it all, and that’s no small prize.

Then there’s Addison Russell. But let’s just not. We at least got Marcus Semien as a 3-WAR consolation, and maybe Franklin Barreto will make us forget all about everything anyway. Just be happy for the kid and move on. (Update: OK fine, I wrote more about him.)

One of the few things that made the Cubs anything less than easy to root for is that they have John Lackey. So gross. He will always have the stink of Angels all over him and I’ll never really be able to root for him. But he was a relative non-factor in the postseason, and so his mug hopefully won’t be central to the moments that will be replayed for generations as Cubs fans wait another 108 years for the next golden summer.

Chris Coghlan opened the year by posting a .487 OPS in 51 games for a last-place team, and he finished it by winning a ring. Baseball is weird.

With Chicago’s victory, the A’s now have the 13th-longest title drought in MLB, at 27 years. The Indians now have the longest, at 68 years. Six teams have never won.

It’s an even year and the Giants didn’t win the World Series. Thank you, Cubs.