Bryce Harper, a National League MVP at 23, is a free agent at 26, peddling his services in an industry that’s grown to nearly $11 billion in annual revenues. His combination of skills, age and marketing cachet make him an excellent fit for any major league franchise.

Particularly the Chicago Cubs.

Harper, who has 184 career home runs and a lifetime .900 OPS, rejected a 10-year, $300 million contract offer from the Washington Nationals in September, and is a good bet to set a new standard for the most lucrative contract in North American sports history.

It may take weeks for that process to play out. In the meantime, USA TODAY Sports will examine why every team could use Harper’s services – some more than others, certainly some better-equipped to procure them.

A case for Harper and the Cubs joining forces:

On the field

Of all the teams with a highly plausible shot at landing Harper, the Cubs are perhaps unmatched in terms of the questions they face and the introspection necessary to answer them.

How large is their championship window – and are they at the start, middle, or end of it?

How wedded are they to their core of young players – and how many of them do they care to retain at any cost?

Are they willing to break the bank for one season of a true “super team” – and are the players on that roster capable of accepting significantly diminished roles to make it happen?

And perhaps most notably, do they believe their offensive backslide at the end of 2018 that cost them a division title and sent them home by October is a blip, or a signal this team is getting older and in need of a recharge?

“Our offense broke somewhere along the lines,” said baseball operations president Theo Epstein in the wake of their NL wild-card game loss to Colorado. “Something happened in our offense in the second half where we stopped walking, we stopped hitting home runs, we stopped hitting the ball in the air and we stopped being productive.”

Harper, of course, would help immensely in all those areas.

While the Cubs wilted in the second half – and scored one or no runs in 40 of their 164 total games – Harper suffered through the worst first half of his career, batting .214 at the All-Star break. Yet by season’s end, he had the numbers that mattered – an NL-leading 130 walks, 34 home runs, a .393 OBP, an .889 OPS.

While Harper’s 2018 valleys at times deadened the Nationals’ offense, his season-long numbers are the essential vitamins needed to maintain good lineup health.

And he’d give the Cubs a punishing core for the next three seasons.

Drop Harper amid Kris Bryant, Anthony Rizzo, Javier Baez and Willson Contreras and you’d have a quintet of All-Stars all in their prime, all, save for Rizzo, younger than 30 from now through the 2021 season.

At best, it’d be a daunting offensive machine. At worst, it buys an awful lot of insurance when one guy is not clicking – be it Bryant for most of 2018 due to a shoulder injury, Contreras’ disconcerting second-half power dip or however Rizzo’s production may change as he nears 30.

Meanwhile, the Cubs’ cupboard would overflow with options in 2019.

Three everyday positions would be left to divide among Ben Zobrist, Kyle Schwarber, Ian Happ, Jason Heyward, Albert Almora Jr. and David Bote. The Cubs could keep almost all of them and enjoy an absurdly deep and largely flexible roster.

They could also trade one or multiple parts and either fortify the bullpen or restock a farm system depleted by four seasons of win-now marching orders. Zobrist, coming off a solid 2018, would have nice value as he’ll make just $12 million in the final year of his contract and provides multi-position versatility.

Off the field

Here’s where you, gentle reader, can go to town on all the Harper-to-Chicago hints dropped like so many Pokemon Go clues over the years: Dog: Wrigley. Baseball BFF: Bryant. Wives: Also friends.

The Vegas Boys’ pairing took another twist over the weekend when Harper shared an Instagram story of they and spouses Jessica and Kayla chilling backstage with Nelly at a recent concert (or does that mean Harper to The Lou?)

OK, enough empty calories – does Wrigley Field have room for the 2015 and 2016 NL MVPs?

Certainly.

Of course, there will be hard choices should the Cubs do what it takes to land Harper – say, a 12-year deal for $420 million.

Bryant, Baez and Rizzo are free agents after 2021, Contreras a year after. Heyward’s contract still has five years and $106 million remaining, limiting financial and on-field flexibility.

Let’s be honest: It’s a near certainty the Cubs wouldn’t be able to lock up all those guys when their contracts are up, anyway. For the next three years, they will provide All-Star production at arbitration-eligible or team-friendly rates.

Essentially, the Cubs can worry about 2022 when it’s 2022. They may already have damaged any chances at striking preemptively on Bryant when they suppressed his service time in 2014 and 2015, pushing his free agency back a year and resulting in Bryant filing a grievance with the players’ union.

He’s eligible for free agency the same time baseball’s Collective Bargaining Agreement expires. The guess here is Bryant, for symbolic and tangible reasons, will want to attack the market in its new state of play.

In the meantime, why not go all out with a gaggle of highly charismatic players for the next three years? Should the Cubs’ dreams of launching their own TV network by 2020 crystallize, there’d be no finer programming than a truly fab five in their prime.

Can they pull it off?

With a franchise valued at nearly $3 billion and estimated annual revenue of more than $450 million, according to Forbes, the Cubs absolutely have the wherewithal to pay Harper and a lot of other dudes, too.

And the cash machine is only just now whirring: In addition to taking their TV rights to market after next season, owner Tom Ricketts has sunk hundreds of millions of dollars into developing the area around Wrigley Field into a year-round, live-work-play cash machine.

That investment is about to take off as Ricketts’ development arm remakes the neighborhood – RIP, Taco Bell – into what it hopes is a year-round destination. The revenue streams are bottomless – heck, an insurance company has purchased naming rights to a plaza that adjoins the stadium.

Sure, the big-money commitments to Heyward and pitcher Yu Darvish aren’t going away. The massive salary hikes due Bryant, Baez and friends are real.

So, too, is the lucrative new financial reality for this franchise.

Will it happen?

There’s certainly a strong possibility. Epstein has played both sides of the fence publicly, noting the long-term commitments in one breath but “not ruling anything out” in the next.

It’s clear both player and team have eyes for one another. The Cubs might not offer the total dollars a hungry and payroll-clean club like the Philadelphia Phillies can. But they can surely guarantee Harper earns the biggest contract in baseball history from both a total dollar and average annual value standpoint, even if it’s a few bucks less than others might offer him.

Perhaps most important, they can offer a home Harper seems quite comfortable with.

Follow Lacques on Twitter @GabeLacques