Theo Epstein

[redandwhite]

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Oct 31, 2005 -> 07:31 PM)

I believe the team would have to seek the permission of the club where the guy is under contract.

 

Before they hired Theo, the BoSox offered Beane something like $2.5 million a year to head to Boston, and Beane turned it down to stay out west.  He wont' be moving anywhere.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

He accepted the offer, only coming back on his decision a day later after realizing how distant he would become in the lives of his children, wife, and other family members.

 

Three years have passed, and so anything is impossible, but to me it doesn't really matter. The answer was Theo Epstein, not Billy Beane, and in such an important offseason, this could be detrimental to the Red Sox future.

 

It's a sad day for Red Sox Nation.

[Balta1701]

You're pretty much saying that Theo Epstein isn't confident in his abilities to put a winner on the field?  That's what it seems like.

 

Sounds to me like he lost the power struggle between he and Luchino, not any of the theories you're concocting (sp?)...

If I were running that team, right now I would not be confident about my abilities to put a world series winner on the field.

 

They have a pitching staff with serious holes. They have 2 different key players who have already asked to be traded - Ramirez and Wells. They are in the process of trying to build the right way - from the bottom up, but that takes time. And at the same time, they're faced with major pressures to win now - this is how Edgar Renteria ends up locked up with a 4 year deal when Hanley Ramirez was only 1 or 2 years away at the same position.

 

Furthermore, the Yankees actually started to get younger this year, which will only make it harder for the BoSox to challenge them next year. If they can find adequate, young solutions in guys like Cano and Wang...guys who just fill 1 or 2 roster spots, that gives them even more dough to spend. And they won't always make stupid decisions like Kevin Brown.

[redandwhite]

The Red Sox, despite popular belief, are in a very good position to win next year. Papelbon, DiNardo, Lester, Hansen, Delcarmen are all very good young talents and when you've got Pedroia and Youkilis on the offensive side of things, the future is bright.

 

I just would have rather seen Theo at the helm than Lucchino. Manny will now certainly be traded, and it's still a possibility that Damon could be resigned for 5/$50 which scares the hell out of me with Ellsbury only a year away.

[CWSGuy406]

Balta, Hanley Ramirez has a long way to go before he can be really considered ready -- and, I realize that you did say one-to-two years. But, he only hit .271/.332/.385 for Boston's AA team last year. That's not exactly tearing the cover off the ball.

 

Epstein is a damn good GM, and I'm confident in saying that he'd be able to compete with the Yankees for the AL East Crown, year in, year out.

 

It just sucks to have him outted this way. I really hope that all AL Central teams (read: KC and Detroit) stay away from Epstein, too.

[jackie hayes]

And they won't always make stupid decisions like Kevin Brown.

They don't need to. They can just keep making stupid decisions like Jaret Wright, and the Red Sox'll cruise.

[Balta1701]

They don't need to.  They can just keep making stupid decisions like Jaret Wright, and the Red Sox'll cruise.

Amazingly, the Yankees are spending so much more than everyone else that they can actually afford some stupid decisions, as long as they simultaneously make an occasional smart one and at the same time bring along an occasional young guy.

[jackie hayes]

Amazingly, the Yankees are spending so much more than everyone else that they can actually afford some stupid decisions, as long as they simultaneously make an occasional smart one and at the same time bring along an occasional young guy.

It depends -- it becomes a problem when your roster is too full of $10 mil guys breaking down to carry someone who can actually play cf, and when your rotation is so fragile that you may realistically have to field 2 or 3 replacements in the rotation at some point. They didn't have a good solution to their problems this year except complete dumb luck. Their savior was Aaron Small -- how many times does a team get that lucky?

[aboz56]

First, the White Sox sweep the Red Sox in the ALDS, in convincing fashion...

 

Now, Theo Epstein leaves the club....

 

The demise continues....

 

[southsideirish71]

[DBAHO]

Towers and Epstein swapping?

 

Sean McAdam of the Providence Journal believes Gerry Hunsicker, Brian Sabean and J.P. Ricciardi can be eliminated as candidates to become Boston's next GM.

Hunsicker and Sabean are already popular choices, but Hunsicker has issues with Red Sox CEO Larry Lucchino and Sabean also wouldn't approve of the current chain of command, according to McAdam. San Diego's Kevin Towers is getting a lot of attention -- he's gotten along with Lucchino before -- and might end up being the choice. Interestingly, that would open the door for Epstein to return to San Diego. Of the candidates with no experience, Oakland's David Forst and Cleveland's Chris Antonetti look like the best bets. Nov. 1 - 4:00 am et

[Steff]

Yikes..

 

Don't let the trophy hit you on the way out, Theo

Ian O'Connor USA TODAY

Wed Nov 2,10:10 PM ET

 

 

 

Theo Epstein, 31-year-old executive, is acting half his age. He is walking away from his dream job and dream salary and dream season because his mentor stopped kissing his ring for five minutes, leaving poor Theo to pick up his ball and storm all the way home.

 

Boy wonder, big blunder. After Brian Cashman zigged and zagged his way through the Yankee power structure and wisely kept a gig he knows will be the best he'll ever have, Epstein reached for a pacifier and wailed his way out the Fenway Park door.

 

 

Good riddance, Red Sox fans should shout. Thanks for the historic parade. Don't let the trophy hit you on the way out.

 

 

At his bizarre and dishonest news conference Wednesday, Epstein revealed himself for what he is: a baby. A kid who needs to grow up. Cashman can weather year after year of George Steinbrenner's storms, fight off all the owner's back-room operatives, and end up with a lavish contract extension and home-field advantage for business once conducted in a hostile Tampa environment.

 

 

Epstein? Larry Lucchino, his baseball elder, suddenly decides to bounce a ball off Theo's forehead, Great Santini style, and the kid goes down faster than the Red Sox did in the first round.

 

 

If this is how Epstein was planning to respond when times got tough, really tough, Boston fans should realize they'll be better off without him.

 

 

Epstein wore a gorilla suit the other day to put the slip on reporters, but he ended up making a monkey out of himself. He said his rejection of a three-year, $4.5 million extension offer had nothing to do with a suspected Lucchino role in a Boston Globe column that painted Epstein in unflattering shades.

 

 

He said there was no power struggle. No chain-of-command issues. No feelings of burnout. Epstein, the local boy made great, the one who shaped a team that ended an 86-year drought, simply said he could no longer "put my whole heart and soul into it."

 

 

Epstein refused to identify why, refused to get specific, and this was an immature and irresponsible way to leave his hometown. Boston adored him. Made him the prince of the city. Offered him a free pass from here to eternity for slaying an October legion of demons and doubts.

 

 

The city deserved better. Boston deserved plenty more than Epstein showing up Wednesday against a backdrop littered with Red Sox and Dunkin' Donuts logos, showing up in an open-collared, powder blue shirt that wouldn't have made David Stern's grade, and telling a depressed village of broken-hearted admirers that he was bailing for, well, no good reason.

 

 

Epstein allowed that there were "complexities" and "ups and downs" in his relationship with Lucchino, the executive who discovered him and made him an intern. But Epstein maintained, "Larry and I like each other."

 

 

Lucchino likes Epstein so much he forgot to attend his news conference, an announcement attended by John Henry, the principal owner, and an overflow chorus of computer geeks who served as blind apostles of Epstein's faith.

 

 

"You have to believe in the people you work with," the departing GM would say. "You have to believe in the whole organization."

 

 

It was his way of saying he didn't believe in Lucchino. It was Epstein's one candid-camera moment of the day.

 

 

"Theo is a remarkable young man," Henry said.

 

 

He's a quitter, too.

 

 

Speaking in whispers and shedding a few tears over what he called "a great, great loss," Henry came across as a hopelessly detached, charisma-free leader, an owner incapable of stopping Epstein from making an obvious career mistake. Henry's body language suggested weakness and indecision, everything Steinbrenner doesn't stand for.

 

 

"I hold myself wholly responsible," Henry said. "Maybe I'm not fit to be the principal owner of the Boston Red Sox. ... Never in my wildest dreams did I think this would ever happen. ... Did I blow it? Yeah, I feel that way."

 

Epstein didn't just leave Henry; he left Henry after his chief aide, Josh Byrnes, took the GM job in Arizona. Maybe the Diamondbacks will get suckered as well. The scorecard on these ridiculously young preppies who are taking over baseball, one baby step at a time, is starting to look spotty: Paul DePodesta couldn't hack it in L.A., and his buddy couldn't hack it in Boston.

 

"It's the right decision to leave the organization," Epstein said.

 

Not if that decision was based on Lucchino's ego. Every franchise has a Lucchino, a boardroom player, a suit who knows how to work the field. And proteges worldwide end up getting squeezed by insecure mentors who ultimately decide they've taught their students too well.

 

Human nature is what it is.

 

Epstein said last year's World Series title freed him to make this decision, which makes no sense. That championship gave him a free pass to rule in Boston forever.

 

Wednesday, the kid threw that ticket in the trash. When Epstein grows up, he'll regret the day he acted half his age.

[LosMediasBlancas]

L.A. Bound?

Sorry if this was already mentioned.

 

http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/5049590