Baseball America names Cubs as organization of the year

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Big surprise: The World Champion Cubs were named as organization of the year.

Baseball America tabbed the Cubs as the top organization in MLB in 2016, but they don't always choose the World Series winner.

In 2015, the Pittsburgh Pirates won BA's honor despite losing to the Cubs in the NL wild card game. In 2014, the Kansas City Royals were BA's organization of the year despite losing to Madison Bumgarner and the San Francisco Giants in the World Series.

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BA pointed to the Cubs' success at the big-league level in 2016 as the nomination for organization of the year, but it goes beyond that:

The infrastructure Epstein, Hoyer and Co. put in place culminated in the Cubs winning 103 games this year, making their first World Series appearance since 1945 and, of course, winning their first World Series title since 1908. For that, the Cubs are the 2016 Baseball America Organization of the Year.

“It’s over-talked about, but every team has their own way of doing things, and we were trying to make the ‘Cubs way’ inclusive,” Hoyer said. “Have everybody have their opinions heard and have it be sort of an organic thing. I think that was a big part of it. We weren’t trying to dictate our own philosophy. We were trying to build a philosophy with the people here and I think that was effective.”

Baseball America also looked at the Cubs' future, highlighting 15 players on the World Series 25-man roster who are 28 or younger.

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