It’s been a while since the Chicago Cubs broke camp as an underdog in any sense of the word. Really, you have to go back to 2015, when Jon Lester and Joe Maddon headed to Arizona for Spring Training for the first time and it seemed like things were finally trending in the right direction after a half-decade of rebuilding under Theo Epstein and Jed Hoyer.
Of course, that campaign culminated in a postseason run that lasted all the way till the NLCS, Maddon winning National League Manager of the Year, Kris Bryant‘s Rookie of the Year performance and Jake Arrieta taking home NL Cy Young honors after one of the most statistically impressive second halves in baseball history.