Polling Place: Is it time to move on from this core of Cubs hitters?

Kris Bryant and the Cubs have done more than their share of striking out. | Photo by Justin Berl/Getty Images

“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.

The Cubs have one year remaining of control 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 abilities to hit baseballs? Well, that’s another story altogether.

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 — perhaps not around so much longer himself — 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 against 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,” @WeBookBands wrote. “Don’t be shocked if one or two of these guys thrive in a different lineup.”

We’d certainly 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:

Poll No. 1: Would you like to see the Cubs keep their core group of hitters together for one more run at a World Series in 2021?

Upshot: That’s a pretty hard “no,” isn’t it? It’s a reminder of some of the things the Cubs had going for them when they won it all in 2016 that they no longer have, such as a real leadoff hitter in Dexter Fowler and a pro’s pro at the plate in Ben Zobrist. Mostly, though, they leaned on the same guys who now are far more experienced and, in theory, ought to be even more dependable. The regression in certain cases has been nothing less than confounding.

Poll No. 2: How many more All-Star seasons does Kris Bryant, 28, have in him?

Upshot: The man has had three already — plus a Rookie of the Year award and the aforementioned MVP — and has had some rotten luck with injuries that have exacerbated his struggles at the plate. Bryant once represented everything exciting and positive about the Cubs’ future. Unfortunately, to a lot of fans he now embodies the team’s failure to rise to its full potential.

Poll No. 3: Which grade would you give Theo Epstein for the job he has done over nine years on the North Side?

Upshot: There’s no question the organization had its eye on multiple World Series appearances with this core. Part of the reason it hasn’t happened is that a number of Epstein’s key moves since 2016 have fallen flat or blown up in his face. But as @1onethree put it: “Anything less than an ‘A’ is an incorrect answer. The ultimate goal was to bring a trophy to the North Side. He did that for the first time in 108 years. We can nitpick all we want to about recent years, but 2016 happened — that’s what matters.”