Column: Chicago Cubs are talking like contenders. So let’s hold them accountable if they don’t improve this year.

MESA, Ariz. — On a cold April day at Wrigley Field in 2014, Commissioner Bud Selig held an impromptu news conference in the press box dining room, where he delivered an impassioned defense of the Ricketts family’s attempt to renovate the 100-year-old ballpark.

The Cubs had been battling with the city and rooftop owners over signage and video boards for the landmarked ballpark, and Selig announced he would do “whatever is legally” possible to help the Cubs get the project approved.

“That’s how strongly I feel about preserving Wrigley Field,” Selig said. “You can’t ask a team to be competitive and you can’t ask people to do things and then tie their hands and their legs. It’s just wrong. Somebody has to say it’s wrong, and I’m going to say it.”

The Cubs eventually got everything they wanted and more, including a new clubhouse, two video boards and seven signs in the bleachers. That led to advertising in every nook and cranny at Wrigley, plus expanded bleachers, new bullpens under the bleachers, private clubs galore and the Gallagher Way park outside the stadium.

And last August the Cubs won approval from the Commission on Chicago Landmarks to build a two-story, 20,000-square-foot sportsbook connected to the ballpark on Addison Street that will open sometime in early spring.

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Not only were their hands and feet not tied, but local politicians have bent over backward the last nine years to give the Rickettses free rein to make structural changes at the iconic venue, even letting them take away one of the greatest ballpark vistas anywhere — the upper-deck seats behind home plate — to turn it into the Catalina Club.

The added revenue streams have made the Cubs the envy of many professional sports franchises and have significantly increased the value of the team to an estimated $3.8 billion, according to Forbes.

In return, Cubs fans have seen one championship with all that money flowing in.

Granted, that’s one more than they had seen in the previous century-plus, but the promise of multiple World Series teams in exchange for allowing the owners to do whatever they see fit to alter the ballpark has yet to be fulfilled.

And, as Selig might say, it’s just wrong.

Nevertheless, as the Cubs officially begin spring training Wednesday at Sloan Park, we can expect President Jed Hoyer and manager David Ross to reiterate that the team is in good position to return to the postseason.

That’s good news, even though the oddsmakers aren’t really buying it and PECOTA projections call for a 77-85 finish, a three-win improvement over 2022.

But the Cubs insist they’re contenders, so at least they’re finally putting pressure on themselves to get the job done or face the music. They got through the last two seasons with no expectations to win and little blowback. There was a lot of talk from Ross about the guys “playing hard” and “growing.” That’s the mantra of a rebuild, even though the Cubs declined to refer to it as such.

The last two seasons saw the return of the Cubs teams from our youth, the kind that annually went into spring training with no real chance of getting to the World Series, much less winning it.

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Yet somehow, Chairman Tom Ricketts deemed the sub-.500 season in 2022 a “success” last September, suggesting the plan was working just like they envisioned.

“The fact is you can’t buy a championship team in baseball,” he said. “You have to build it. And that’s what we’re doing.”

Ricketts must’ve known Cubs fans weren’t buying that narrative. If that wasn’t obvious, he could see from the lowest attendance figures since 1997 and the falling Marquee Sports Network ratings that things had to change.

So he gave Hoyer the impetus to spend more freely in the offseason to try to change the look from not-so-innocent bystanders to actual postseason contenders. After some early trepidation over whether he would swing and miss at the Big Four shortstops, Hoyer got it done.

Most of the estimated $287 million Hoyer spent on new players went to two free agents — shortstop Dansby Swanson ($177 million) and starting pitcher Jameson Taillon ($68 million) — while returning free-agent pitcher Drew Smyly ($19 million) and first baseman Trey Mancini ($14 million) were the kind of low-budget signings we saw back in 2012-14, when Selig was crying for the Cubs’ hands and legs to be untied.

If Hoyer’s plan succeeds and the Cubs make it to the postseason, everyone can take their bows and point to bigger things in 2024.

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If not, it’s time for Cubs fans to starting holding the owner and front office accountable, just as White Sox fans did with Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf, general manager Rick Hahn and their underachieving team in 2022.

Someone has to do it. We can’t really expect Marquee to give its viewers the same kind of tough-love treatment NBC Sports Chicago delivered to the ‘22 Sox (and is giving the 2022-23 Bulls for that matter). There’s only one Ozzie Guillén and one Frank Thomas.

And as media outlets shrink in size and numbers, there are fewer people holding the Cubs’ feet to the fire. That’s good for the Cubs but bad for the fans.

This could be a turnaround season for the Cubs that reminds us of 2015. Or it could be more of the same old, same old. It really could go either way, and we probably will find out early in the season if the Cubs are the real deal.

But at least spring training finally is here. Soon it will be time for the Cubs to prove they can execute this plan.