POLLING PLACE
The Cubs have one year of control left over the contracts of third baseman Kris Bryant, shortstop Javy Baez, first baseman Anthony Rizzo and left fielder Kyle Schwarber.
As for control over their ability to hit baseballs? Well, that’s another story.
This is no newsflash: The Cubs’ core of hitters isn’t what it used to be, isn’t what the team needed it to be in 2020 and might not exist, in its current form, beyond the coming offseason. There is much speculation that president Theo Epstein will make a major move or two if he can. Bryant, a former MVP, and Schwarber seem to be the likeliest candidates for changes in scenery.
In this week’s ‘‘Polling Place,’’ your home for Sun-Times sports polls on Twitter, we led by asking if you’d like to see the core get another shot to succeed together in 2021. We should mention the names Willson Contreras, Jason Heyward and Ian Happ, too, because they’re as firmly rooted at Wrigley Field as anyone else. All told, it’s a group that did nothing whatsoever in a two-game playoff sweep at the hands of the Marlins.
You want to watch these guys run it back one more time, or what?
‘‘Break up the core,’’ @jermaine611 commented. ‘‘They couldn’t get a hit if Babyface wrote it for them.’’
That’s a heck of a good line about what might not be a heck of a good lineup.
‘‘Same story the last few years: This lineup, as a unit, doesn’t make sense anymore, ’’@We Book Bands wrote. ‘‘Don’t be shocked if one or two of these guys thrive in a different lineup.’’
We’d wish them all the best. What can we say? We’re just magnanimous like that.
Sticking with the Cubs theme, other poll questions centered on Bryant and Epstein. On to the polls: