Asked about team president Theo Epstein’s 2019 “year of reckoning” in the context of the final weeks of the season, Cubs first baseman Anthony Rizzo wanted clarification.
“What do you mean, ‘year of reckoning,’?” he said.
Of course, that’s the gone-viral reference to the organization’s shift last winter from patience with some of the young hitting core to a results-based evaluation as it leaned harder on internal improvement in the face of severe payroll limits.
“This year is really a reckoning in a lot of ways,” Epstein said five weeks after the Cubs’ bitter elimination in back-to-back losses at home to the Brewers in a division tiebreaker and Rockies in the wild-card game.