Author Topic: Theo Epstein Signs With the Cubs?  (Read 1653 times)

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Offline Kevrock

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Re: Theo Epstein Signs With the Cubs?
« Reply #25: October 12, 2011, 04:21:00 PM »
JCA can speak more to this, but I think Theo leaving had lot more to with things outside of the team than the September meltdown.

I'm sure it did, it just strikes me as leaving on the lowest note possible.

Offline MarquisDeSade

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Re: Theo Epstein Signs With the Cubs?
« Reply #26: October 12, 2011, 04:28:54 PM »
I'm sure it did, it just strikes me as leaving on the lowest note possible.

It sounds like, and I'm basing this on the Globe article and other such rumblings, that the marriage was over with and everyone needed to move on.  It'll be interesting to see what happens with the remaining actors in this tragedy.

Offline mitlen

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Re: Theo Epstein Signs With the Cubs?
« Reply #27: October 12, 2011, 04:30:45 PM »
It sounds like, and I'm basing this on the Globe article and other such rumblings, that the marriage was over with and everyone needed to move on.  It'll be interesting to see what happens with the remaining actors in this tragedy.

Who are they MDS?    I'm not a Sox/AL follower.

Offline MarquisDeSade

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Re: Theo Epstein Signs With the Cubs?
« Reply #28: October 12, 2011, 04:33:54 PM »
Who are they MDS?    I'm not a Sox/AL follower.

I'm mostly referring to Lackey, Crawford, Beckett, and really anyone else that was dogging it this season.  Out of everyone involved I feel really bad for Pedroia and Gonzalez. 

Online JCA-CrystalCity

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Re: Theo Epstein Signs With the Cubs?
« Reply #29: October 12, 2011, 04:53:17 PM »
Theo is going to one of the great opportunities in baseball.  There's no guarantee he would not have been allowed to leave had they made the playoffs and won the WS.  10 years with the team, 9 as GM, is a long time.  I don't know how trashed his reputation canbe if he's getting 5 years, $15MM + a $3.5MM severance the Cubs are picking up. 

He made some bad decisions the past year or two, but there is a great laundry list of his moves here:
http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/redsox/extras/extra_bases/2011/10/the_theo_epstei.html
some tremendous "dumpster dives" and trades his first 5 years, some big ticket  busts as FAs starting with Rentareck and Lugo, but a pretty solid record not just based on the owners money.  He should be thankful he does not have to straighten out some of the thornier issues that are left.

It is the typical Red Sox ownership MO to throw folks under the bus via leaks to the Globe when anyone leaves.  This story has the fingerprints of the ownership on it, especially the well placed rumors of painkiller abuse on Francona's part as well as the suggestion that it was Epstein and not the ownership group that wanted to sign Crawford. Toss in the misevaluation of Gonzalez's leadership qualities, and you can see the ownership is very happy to be starting anew with a lower profile GM (likely Ben Cherington) and new manager.

Offline HalfSmokes

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Re: Theo Epstein Signs With the Cubs?
« Reply #30: October 12, 2011, 07:56:35 PM »
Boston was my AL team, but leaking the crap about Franconia and his marriage is a new low- force him out if you want to, but he did win two rings- no need to kick him on the way out

Online imref

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Re: Theo Epstein Signs With the Cubs?
« Reply #31: October 12, 2011, 08:11:10 PM »
Rizzo will be a rich man if the nats make the playoffs or at least improve again next year.

Online JCA-CrystalCity

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Re: Theo Epstein Signs With the Cubs?
« Reply #32: October 12, 2011, 08:20:29 PM »
the marriage stuff was probably easy to find and was not innuendo.  The innuendo was that he was abusing his painkillers and that was affecting his management.  That was nothing but speculation on speculation.  Pretty scummy. 

I root for the laundry, of course, but I will not defend this repeated tactic. 

Offline spidernat

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Re: Theo Epstein Signs With the Cubs?
« Reply #33: October 12, 2011, 09:07:21 PM »
Rizzo will be a rich man if the nats make the playoffs or at least improve again next year.

He probably gets incentive bonuses from the Lerners for keeping payroll low. Probably in the neighborhood of 25K for every million under 80.  :stir:

Offline MarquisDeSade

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Re: Theo Epstein Signs With the Cubs?
« Reply #34: October 12, 2011, 09:11:45 PM »
:lmao:

Offline Tyler Durden

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Re: Theo Epstein Signs With the Cubs?
« Reply #35: October 14, 2011, 10:58:52 AM »
I don't know why Epstein is considered such a genius.  He has an eye for talent - Pedroia, Youk, etc., but so do lots of GMs.  He just had a bigger budget than those other GMs.

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Re: Theo Epstein Signs With the Cubs?
« Reply #36: October 14, 2011, 03:52:15 PM »
Despite the number of big budget FA busts, he made a tremendous number of good trades over the years that were key to their contention and WS wins.  The Nomar for Cabrera and Mientkiewicz deal was a huge gutsy call, and coupled with the low prospect for Dave Roberts move helped win 2004.  Money certainly helped the Schilling deal (for Brandon Lyon, Caseey Fossum, and Jorge De La Rosa), but that would not have happened without gauging the potential contribution of all the players and offering some real talent to AZ.  Add in the Bay for Manny deal and a few others, and it is hard to say that his success did not have a lot to do with his GM skills.   Also, for almost every bust of an FA, there was at least one very good signing for low money (Ortiz, Arroyo, Mueller, Millar, Okajima, ...).

Offline HalfSmokes

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Re: Theo Epstein Signs With the Cubs?
« Reply #37: October 14, 2011, 04:17:45 PM »
Despite the number of big budget FA busts, he made a tremendous number of good trades over the years that were key to their contention and WS wins.  The Nomar for Cabrera and Mientkiewicz deal was a huge gutsy call, and coupled with the low prospect for Dave Roberts move helped win 2004.  Money certainly helped the Schilling deal (for Brandon Lyon, Caseey Fossum, and Jorge De La Rosa), but that would not have happened without gauging the potential contribution of all the players and offering some real talent to AZ.  Add in the Bay for Manny deal and a few others, and it is hard to say that his success did not have a lot to do with his GM skills.   Also, for almost every bust of an FA, there was at least one very good signing for low money (Ortiz, Arroyo, Mueller, Millar, Okajima, ...).

At the same time, with their payroll, they could absorb the busts- The Red Sox are in the same position as the yankees- their payroll means you expect them to be in the playoff, whereas making the playoffs is considered a success for most teams


Offline Lintyfresh85

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Re: Theo Epstein Signs With the Cubs?
« Reply #38: October 18, 2011, 04:08:08 PM »
Quote
@SI_JonHeyman

Padres gm jed hoyer is being considered for hire by the cubs/epstein. If hoyer goes to chicago, josh byrnes would be sd gm

That'd be an odd step back for Hoyer.

Offline DPMOmaha

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Re: Theo Epstein Signs With the Cubs?
« Reply #39: October 18, 2011, 04:25:29 PM »
Maybe the Cubs can make it worth it for him to make the move.

Online JCA-CrystalCity

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Re: Theo Epstein Signs With the Cubs?
« Reply #40: October 18, 2011, 05:45:15 PM »
Hoyer is under contract, so they'd get into the same compensation issue again.  Josh Byrnes to the Cubs makes more sense.  There is also in SD John MacLeod, who ran the Red Sox minor league system under Theo, who would be a potential assistant Gm candidate.

Offline HalfSmokes

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Re: Theo Epstein Signs With the Cubs?
« Reply #41: October 18, 2011, 05:47:44 PM »
I wonder, if you say no to a guy interviewing or compensation forces a deal to get cancelled, do you really trust that guy to work hard or do his best anymore? I'm thinking of this more in terms of the Marlins refusing permission for Jennings to interview, but t may apply here to.

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Re: Theo Epstein Signs With the Cubs?
« Reply #42: October 19, 2011, 08:12:59 AM »
Jennings and Epstein are different cases.  Jennings still has a place with the Marlins.  He can't dog it with them because it may hurt his reputation, but the Marlins may have an interest in keeping him happy.  The Marlins probably envision him as some sort of GM in waiting for them.

With respect to Epstein, he is done with his working relationship with the Red Sox.  If the compensation deal goes south, they will have to pay him but they are not going to have to work with him. It is Cherington's and Lucchino's show now.  Epstein is a sunk cost.  They don't have an incentive to let him go cheap, because they are already out the money for him, and since his salary does not count towards the luxxury tax, they don't need to get him off payroll.  It's the Cubs that want him, so they have to pay.  The Red Sox can point to Pinella for Randy Winn (a 28 year old 4 WAR starter), Guillen for 2 prospects, etc... and say that is the market.  the Cubs can say those were managers not GMs and try to knock it down to lesser compensation.  Right now, the focus is on an AA pitcher, I believe.

Offline HalfSmokes

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Re: Theo Epstein Signs With the Cubs?
« Reply #43: October 21, 2011, 03:30:00 PM »
Do the Sox truly hate former employees? First leaking crap about their most successful manager in the modern era and now asking for Garza as comp? If the sox don't back down I'm thinking Hoyer is the Cubs new GM

Online JCA-CrystalCity

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Re: Theo Epstein Signs With the Cubs?
« Reply #44: October 21, 2011, 04:22:04 PM »
Garza was the first request.  now the focus is on a pitcher, McNutt (McFly?), who is in AA and the AFL.
Per Boston.com
Quote
“This could be done in the snap of a finger,’’ said one party associated with the talks.

And maybe it will.

A major league source familiar with the talks between the Red Sox and Cubs said yesterday, “Both sides just have dug in their heels. It shouldn’t have been this tough. This was a simple process, but it just seemed that both sides needed to come out of it with the feeling they won. And until that happens, there won’t be a deal.’’

. . .
There have been many stories out there over the last 24 hours, and some of them collide. The Chicago side has been indicating that an agreement is close, the Red Sox side just the opposite. The Chicago side was indicating last night that a deal was pending medicals on agreed-upon prospects; the Red Sox said they knew nothing about that.

“It’s very leaky out there,’’ said a person familiar with the talks.
. . .
The Red Sox have been focusing on righty Trey McNutt, the Cubs’ top pitching prospect, who threw in an Arizona Fall League game Wednesday. One scout’s report on him was: “Threw 93-95 and had a better breaking pitch than I’ve seen. He did have command issues.’’


Offline HalfSmokes

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Re: Theo Epstein Signs With the Cubs?
« Reply #45: October 21, 2011, 04:24:32 PM »
Garza was the first request.  now the focus is on a pitcher, McNutt (McFly?), who is in AA and the AFL.
Per Boston.com

espn is behing then (not really surprising), their article had Castro as the first request then a Garza/Lackey swap then just Garza as the progression, then again we all know how much they like acknowledging prospects exist

Offline tomterp

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Re: Theo Epstein Signs With the Cubs?
« Reply #46: October 28, 2011, 08:48:49 AM »
Transaction analysis by Ben Lindbergh, Baseball Prospectus:

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=15366

Quote
One Curse Down, One to Go

Signed RHE (right-handed executive) Theo Epstein to a five-year contract. [10/25]


When the Nationals signed Jayson Werth to a seven-year contract last winter, we were told that what they’d really done, in addition to the more mundane achievement of finding a right fielder, was “change the culture.” The most important byproduct of the move wouldn’t necessarily be Werth’s value on the field (two wins and counting!), but the allegedly legitimizing effect his arrival would have on the organization. With Werth in town, free agents would come flocking to Nationals Park, secure in the knowledge that the Nationals A) wanted to win, and B) were willing to spend (unreasonably) large sums in pursuit of a pennant.

If you thought Werth’s first season in Washington was a disappointment, just wait till you see Theo Epstein’s. Removed from the friendly confines of Citizens Bank Park, Werth hit only 20 home runs. Having bid farewell to Fenway, Epstein won’t hit any. Someone in a suit can do plenty for a team’s on-field fortunes, but not directly; Epstein’s arrival doesn’t bolster a bullpen beset by shaky performances, strengthen the NL’s second-most-porous defense, or up the on-base percentage of a chronically walk-averse offense. Chances are he can’t even channel Alex Anthopoulos and find a GM gullible enough to take Alfonso Soriano’s contract (or even Carlos Zambrano’s) off the Cubs’ hands. As such, the immediate payoff of this protracted tug-of-war for one of baseball’s brightest executives, which resulted in Epstein being appointed as Chicago’s new president of baseball operations, could prove disappointing to any observers unreasonably expecting an overnight improvement.

As Epstein noted in some of his introductory remarks, while the similarities between the Boston organization he took over in 2003 and the Cubs organization he inherits now are obvious—the interminable title drought, the ancient park, the loyal, if long-suffering fanbase—the differences are almost as difficult to miss. In November of 2002, Epstein was hired to oversee a team fresh off a 93-win season, with one of the best pitchers ever (Pedro Martinez) and one of the best hitters ever (Manny Ramirez, not to mention a still-productive Nomar Garciaparra) already on the roster. By contrast, the Cubs are coming off a 71-win, second-to-last-place finish, and while the team does boast its bright spots (Starlin Castro chief among them), competitiveness isn’t just around the corner. Epstein’s last first season led to a seventh-game ALCS loss, with a World Series victory for a sequel; don’t expect a similarly rapid rise to success the second time around. 

Those caveats and obstacles aside, the Cubs are better bets to end all talk of billy goats by, say, 2015 than they were with Jim Hendry in charge. In his first press conference as a Cub, Epstein made mention of the pitfalls of paying for past performance, most likely with players like Mike Lowell and John Lackey in mind. The same principle applies to executives. If the Cubs were simply paying Epstein for the pennants in his past, bringing him on would be a bad idea, and were he a player introduced to great fanfare at age 37, even a particularly well-preserved one, we’d note that his best days were almost certainly behind him. Fortunately, the aging curve for GMs (and presidents of baseball operations) is a good deal more forgiving, and Epstein is still very much on the young side for a man tasked with running a team. That doesn’t mean that his second act will be as successful as his first, but there’s no obvious reason why the Epstein approach to team-building can’t translate to another big market, especially if he's re-energized by a change of scenery and a new challenge, aside from the fact that the competition hasn’t been idle and rival teams are smarter than they were in 2002 or even 2007 (in part because Epstein’s acolytes have found homes in other front offices).

Epstein has earned enough accolades that I needn’t recount his qualifications here; hell, we already wrote a book about them. Suffice it to say that Theo is a top-tier talent both in his ability to evaluate and acquire talent and in his skill at instituting a self-sustaining program of player development; he’s also among the best at dealing with the media, and he’ll be sure to move quickly to get the late-adopting Cubs an equivalent to Carmine, the information management system whose development he oversaw in Boston. What’s more, if Werth was valued by Washington for his potential as a tool for recruiting player talent, then Epstein has the same significance to Chicago. His recruiting powers are paying even more immediate dividends, as Padres GM Jed Hoyer and AGM Jared McLeod will be getting the gang back together under Epstein in Chicago, with Hoyer serving as GM. The round-the-clock business of running a baseball operations department has become too demanding for any one man, so one of the most important measures of a modern GM is the quality of the co-workers with whom he chooses to work. As Epstein plays Mark Shapiro to Hoyer’s Chris Antonetti, the two will continue to add to an assortment of experienced and innovative assistants, giving the Cubs a braintrust that one day might make Epstein himself dispensable.

What is an executive worth? Compare Epstein’s salary (reportedly $15 million over five years, plus a $3.5 million transfer bonus) to similar amounts made by players: the Cubs are on the hook for roughly equal amounts to Epstein and Sean Marshall, a roughly one-to-two win player, in 2012. On the free-agent market, a win goes for far more. What that pay scale tells us is either that teams place far more importance on their players than they do on the masterminds who assemble them, or—maybe more likely—that the supply of potential GMs outstrips the limited demand by a much wider margin than is the case with players, leading to a higher replacement level.

That jibes with something we’ve heard over and over—that once a process is in place, the executive who put it into place becomes inessential, if not quite interchangeable or disposable. Since the Red Sox have already turned Epstein’s vision into a reproducible reality and lined up his capable understudy, Ben Cherington, to replace him, his value is far higher to the Cubs, who have much more to gain from his presence. In light of that calculus, it’s not surprising that this complicated deal got done, even independent of any allure Chicago might have for Epstein as he seeks to cement a legacy as the most memorable Cubs GM and the man who brought titles to two towns where so many had failed before him.

 It may take some time for the Cubs and Red Sox to sort out the matter of player or cash compensation for Epstein’s old club, a process in which the Commissioner is likely to become involved, but the prospects changing uniforms are unlikely to be big names (especially since Cubs prospects with big names are somewhat scarce these days). As Kevin and Jason discussed on Episode 69 of the Up and In podcast, a baseball team’s winter work doesn’t wait until after the World Series; most teams have already had their organizational meetings to determine off-season strategy. With the Winter Meetings less than two months away, Epstein, Hoyer, Josh Byrnes (who ascends to the top job in San Diego) and all the other front office dominoes falling as a result of this game of general managerial musical chairs are already behind the curve; both the Cubs and the Red Sox need to decide who’ll be managing their teams come spring, but that could be the least pressing of their problems, given that arbitration and other signing decisions are just around the corner. The coming weeks and months will bring further developments as the execs of the hour take a break from posing for photos fit for GQ and furiously familiarize themselves with their new players and the gigabytes of proprietary data now at their disposal, but meaningful changes are already afoot. If there’s any team in need of a fresh start, what Epstein called a “Cubs Way,” it’s the Lovable Losers, who now have a better reason than usual to wait ’til next year.






Offline Kevrock

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Re: Theo Epstein Signs With the Cubs?
« Reply #48: November 04, 2011, 06:32:45 AM »
Quote
Epstein also confirmed he would interview Pete Mackanin, the Philadelphia Phillies bench coach, on Wednesday evening. He also has contacted Texas Rangers pitching coach Mike Maddux for an interview.

Epstein added that the process of hiring a manager will be done in a public way with the Chicago media having a chance to interview every candidate. Epstein and his group will evaluate how the candidates interact with the media.

Weird.

Offline MarquisDeSade

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Re: Theo Epstein Signs With the Cubs?
« Reply #49: November 04, 2011, 06:35:51 AM »
Weird.

Looks like they're going to try and rebuild the image and brand again.  How much crow should I order for everyone when the Cubs are back to respectability?