Forget the smoothest-running modern lineup technology.
The diagnostics still dogging the Cubs’ lineup four years later is straight out of a ’52 Ford pickup.
Clutch or choke?
“I don’t think we have un-clutch players at all,” team president Theo Epstein said. “Every player in baseball has to improve with runners in scoring position.”
Yet for all their success, it’s hard to ignore perhaps the Cubs’ Achilles heel for as long as this core has been together since 2015-16.
It hasn’t prevented them from earning four consecutive playoff appearances and a World Series championship (thanks in large part to pitching).