Forget about Kris Bryant’s Instagram account and the choreographed photos with his buddy from Las Vegas. The signs keep pointing toward the Cubs not signing Bryce Harper … unless Theo Epstein has a top-secret plan, a workaround to the franchise’s financial structures and the greatest poker face ever.



So … you’re saying there’s a chance?



Well, Epstein’s reputation as a dealmaker and a risk-taker might be the only thing the Cubs have going for them when they check into the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino and sequester themselves in a suite during next week’s winter meetings in Las Vegas.



It’s the front-office equivalent of the old Yankee Stadium’s Mystique and Aura, which Curt Schilling – the big-game pitcher who helped Epstein make his bones with the Boston Red Sox – once dismissed as “dancers in a nightclub.” It’s the off-the-field version of Jason Heyward spinning this...