Anthony Rizzo on Cubs' Core Players: 'This Could Be Our Last Year Together'

The Chicago Cubs' core broke the team's 108-year World Series title drought in 2016 and has helped the club start 12-3 this year, but first baseman Anthony Rizzo believes the group's time together may be ending.

"I'm not going to shy away from it; this could be our last year together," he told reporters. "I think we all know that, especially with the state of the game ...This could be our last run with all of our core guys.''

If this is the core's last run together, it is making the most of it in the early going.

The Cubs' 12-3 mark is the team's best 15-game start since 1970, and it already has a five-game lead over the second-place St. Louis Cardinals in the National League Central. No other first-place team has a lead of more than one game in the NL.

The performance is all the more notable because it is manager David Ross' first year at the helm in place of Joe Maddon, who moved to the Los Angeles Angels.

Still, Rizzo's quote was somewhat ominous, and one look at the team's contracts explains his mindset.

According to Spotrac, Tyler Chatwood, Jose Quintana and Jason Kipnis are scheduled for free agency after this season. More notably, Rizzo, Kris Bryant, Javier Baez, Jon Lester and Kyle Schwarber are all scheduled for free agency after 2021.

That latter group represents a huge portion of the core that won the World Series and ushered in one of the most successful stretches in Cubs history. What's more, Bryant's name was included in trade talks this past offseason, and ownership has consistently stressed that there hasn't been much payroll room to make significant moves the past two years despite being in a major market.

Notably, an April report from Forbes listed the Cubs as the fourth-most valuable team in Major League Baseball.

Ownership may not want to, but it will surely need to spend if it plans on keeping the core together for much longer.