Mark Grote

It's funny you bring up 2016 Cubs because that was the era where then we heard a couple years later Theo Epstein say the offense broke.

Yes.

And then we've been trying to find it ever since.

It's come in flashes, but we're still trying to see that.

We saw it in the first half of last year.

And that still is a question for me that remains not entirely answered.

But Nico Horner not being on this team doesn't solve that.

And so when you see him hit the way he did last year, where he was a consistent presence, where he was batting 297, the defense was there.

You saw how Dansby Swanson and Nico helped win you ball games with that defense playing at an elite level.

It makes sense as to why they wanted to make this move.

Is it too aggressive to say this and to believe that this year could be the best offensive team since the World Series team?

Because that's the way I'm looking at it.

2017 was also a very good offensive team.

Okay.

The problem was the Brewers had a wildly successful season in 2018 that kind of stopped it.

You know, Mark, you remember this.

That was when Javi Baez and Christian Jelic were going neck and neck.

And then we saw Yellich pull away and just have a month of September that was outrageous.

Then they play that game 163.

I was there for that.