Cubs anoint Theo Epstein as their latest Messiah
RICK MORRISSEY rmorrissey@suntimes.com October 13, 2011 8:34PM
Updated: January 23, 2012 3:48AM
The Cubs finally did what a lot of us have been agitating for lo these many years: They aimed as high as possible.
They went out and bought the services of Theo Epstein, whom many consider to be the best general manager in baseball. They did not go cheap. They spent piles of money, reportedly $20 million over five years, to lure the man who helped the Red Sox win two World Series.
They did not promote someone from within, which seems to be the Cubs’ preferred method of doing business.
The Rickettses went a different way, and bless them for it.
Finally, a real baseball man. Finally, someone with a history of success. Finally, someone with a stellar . . . wait a second.
What was Lou Piniella?
And Dusty Baker?
And, dare I say it, what was Andy MacPhail?
You’re laughing, but you’re forgetting how you carried on after the Cubs spent big money to get two big-name managers.
“In Dusty We Trusty” — does that cheery motto sound familiar?
How about your reverential “Looooooooooooooooooou” chant whenever Piniella stepped foot on the grass at Wrigley Field?
And do you remember your reaction when MacPhail came on board in 1994 after winning two World Series as the Twins’ GM? Here was the guy who was going to change the culture of losing on the North Side. That’s what you and everybody else said, for good reason.
I know: Epstein is different than those failed experiments. He’s young, though not nearly as young as when he became the Red Sox’ general manager at 28 nine years ago.
MacPhail was 41 when the Cubs hired him away from Minnesota and made him president. He was a few years past boy-wonder status, but he looked wonkish and that seemed to hint at something modern and cutting edge.
Over the years, the Cubs often took the easy way out, the cheapest way out. But not recently. Their 2011 payroll was $126 million, sixth highest in the big leagues.
I know: Epstein is different. He wouldn’t have been dumb enough to give Alfonso Soriano an eight-year, $136 million contract.
But he was dumb enough to give John Lackey $82.5 million over five years. And Red Sox fans couldn’t have been happy with Year 1 of the seven-year, $142 million contract he gave Carl Crawford.
Epstein will have a nice honeymoon period, but the pressure on him will be enormous. People already are thinking of him as a miracle worker, but keep in mind that from 1998-2001, the Red Sox won 92, 94, 85 and 82 games, respectively.
When he was elevated from assistant GM to GM in November 2002, the team was coming off a 93-victory season. In his first year in his new position, the Red Sox lost the American League Championship Series in seven games to the Yankees. The next year, they won the World Series. He could take credit for acquiring David Ortiz, Kevin Millar and Curt Schilling, but it wasn’t as if the Red Sox were bottom-dwellers when he arrived in Boston.
In Chicago, he inherits Soriano and a team that won 71 games.
Let’s try to remember that as we tie the “savior’’ tag around his neck.
Cubs chairman Tom Ricketts has moved slowly since his family bought the team in 2009, too slowly for some of us, but it’s clear from the Epstein hire that he has identified one of the franchise’s biggest problems. He wants to replicate in Chicago the farm system Epstein built in Boston. That has been the Cubs’ weakness for what seems like forever. It has been a strength for the Red Sox the past nine years.
It could take awhile for Epstein’s work to bear fruit. Will you be patient, Cubs fans?
He has no idea of what he’s up against with this franchise, which has gone 103 years without a World Series title and 66 years without a World Series appearance. There’s no way he can fully grasp the weight of it.
The 86-year World Series drought by the Red Sox before the 2004 team finally won it? Child’s play. Amateur hour.
Epstein surely has heard all the various theories as to why the Cubs are the Cubs. He can give you answers for why it will be different on his watch.
But only someone who has been here awhile can understand the perverse Cub-osity of the situation. For counsel, he might want to call Baker and Piniella, who once upon a time arrived similarly unawares.
On second thought, maybe not. We don’t want to scare the guy away.
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