Cubs face a plethora of daunting questions this offseason

Cubs have to get production from their star players – or else

The ‘core’ of Kris Bryant, Javier Baez, Anthony Rizzo and Kyle Schwarber all struggled. Without those big bats taking care of business, the offense stood no chance of finding success. This entire lineup is predicated on those guys serving as a driving force and creating runs. It didn’t happen and the team paid the price.

Epstein could try to trade from this crop of free agents-to-be. But what return will he get? Not much at this point. Bryant missed considerable time due to injury and wasn’t his MVP-caliber self on the field. Baez was downright horrible – and did major damage to his prospects of landing a mega-deal either in free agency or in contract talks.

We’ve talked about a reckoning for some time. It seems like watching your offense fade late in the season for the third consecutive season would be the final straw, but this isn’t a typical offseason. Finances are a major concern, your ‘trade chips’ have lost a ton of value and a regime change could be on the horizon in the baseball operations department.

Will this be the winter of change? We’ll have to wait and see.