Thanks a lot, Theo Epstein. Because of you, we now live in a world where some anonymous fan who totally thinks he saw you at a Starbucks is actually a credible source for breaking news. Yes, that’s right, the guy we roundly mocked was on to something because it has been revealed that Theo Epstein could be jumping ship from the Red Sox and going to the Cubs:
Two baseball sources have confirmed that Theo Epstein is on the cusp of leaving his job as general manager of the Red Sox to accept a position with the Chicago Cubs that is believed to include powers greater than he has in Boston, with an announcement expected to be made “within the next 24 to 48 hours.”
If this doesn’t lead to Ken Rosenthal camping out at Starbucks throughout Orange County to see if he can get the scoop on who will take over as general manager for the Angels, I will be severely disappointed.
Even with Epstein having much of his Teflon stripped off in Boston after their late-season collapse, this is a coup for the Cubs. They’ve been floundering for the last few seasons and are only just now emerging out from under the multitude of horrible contracts they have handed out in recent years. While they have always been a beloved organization by fans, getting Epstein not only gives those fans a new sense of hope that they have a smart decision-maker in charge but Epstein’s presence should also give the club back some cache and credibility with potential free agents.
For Epstein, making the move is almost a no-brainer. Yes, he has deep roots in Boston, but the afterglow from the two championships he helped orchestrate has largely faded away. Not only were fans and media turning on him, but it appears that ownership was losing faith in him as well, otherwise they wouldn’t be so willing to let him go. Now Epstein gets to take over a franchise that was as desperate for success as the Red Sox were when he started there. The Cubs may not quite have as much money as Boston, but Epstein should still have plenty of financial flexibility to rebuild this roster.
In fact, one could argue that having to exercise a little discretion with the contracts he gives out my do Epstein some good. A big reason his tenure in Boston started going south was because of the spate of bad signings he made in the last two season, Carl Crawford and John Lackey, to be specific. He’d had some other missteps along the way too, and there is a sense in Boston that he was sometimes just throwing around money for the sake of doing so, possibly even at the owner’s orders. Under the Ricketts ownership, the Cubs have spent a lot, but we are talking about the $140 million range as opposed to $165 million in Boston. Theo won’t be hurting for cash, but not having that extra $25 million just lying around will hopefully make him think a little bit more before he hands out another massive contract.
Many have said that if he can pull off a turnaround of the Cubbies and helps them break their own World Series curse, he becomes an instant legend. While that is entirely true, don’t expect it to happen overnight. The Cubs are at a point where they have to essentially hit the reset button. Despite having some big salaries still owed, the Cubs’ big league roster doesn’t have a whole lot to build on. Starlin Castro is a bright young talent and Matt Garza is a pretty good pitcher, but after that Old Mother Jim Hendry didn’t leave anything but bones in the cupboard (I know it didn’t rhyme, shut up, you try rhyming with Hendry). And the farm system isn’t much better.
And just to increase the degree of difficulty for Epstein, he is going to have to makeover this roster by first coughing up “something significant” to get the Red Sox to allow him to make the move. Personally, I would think a surefire sign of a good GM would be that he would say it is a bad idea to trade a quality player or prospect in order to acquire himself, but that appears to be what Epstein is going to do. Whatever the Cubs trade for Epstein, it is going to set back their rebuilding process, a process that looks like it could take a few years to complete, even with a purported genius like Theo calling the shots.
As for the Red Sox, they might be acting like they don’t want to see this happen, but that rings hollow to me. If they didn’t want Epstein to leave, they could have simply refused to give the Cubs permission to talk to him in the first place. Any protest they have now is simply for PR purposes or an attempt to drive up the trade price for Epstein. Maybe they weren’t 100% sold that they wanted Epstein out, but the writing was on the wall that his tenure might be losing gas, so they wisely ejected before they crashed and burned. Doing so at this point also helps the Red Sox keep Epstein’s protege, Ben Cherington. Cherington has been a hot name in the GM rumor mill for other teams, so he may not have been around to be promoted next season had Red Sox ownership insisted on trying to ride out the final year of Epstein’s contract.
So long as this prospective deal doesn’t fall apart, at the very least Epstein’s Cubs should be worth paying attention to as will the Red Sox as they try and move on into the post-Epstein era.
