10. Can the Cubs repeat?
In case you hadn’t heard, the Chicago Cubs did something in 2016 that they hadn’t done in a long, long time.
The moment.#WorldSeries pres. by @TMobile pic.twitter.com/CsrG5yvfII
— MLB (@MLB) November 3, 2016
In 2017, the Cubs will try to do something that nobody else has done in a while — repeat.
The 1998-2000 New York Yankees were the last team to pull it off, while the 1975-1976 Cincinnati Reds were the last National League team to repeat.
Chicago is loaded with talent. The champs enter the regular season with, by far, the deepest, most-talented roster in baseball. This team enters 2017 in better position to repeat than any defending champ since those Yankees teams.
And what a story it would be if it happened.
Think about the World Series droughts that ended this decade. The Giants (56 years) and Royals (30 years) don’t hold a candle to what the Cubs went through. Heck, even the Boston Red Sox (86 years) and Chicago White Sox (88 years) were well short of what was experienced at Wrigley Field.
Can this franchise’s turnaround keep going? Can it go from the ultimate futility, to doing something that nobody has done since president Bill Clinton (or, in the case of National League teams, Gerald Ford) occupied The White House?