Theo Epstein, president of the Chicago Cubs’ baseball operations, comes from a writing family. His grandfather and his grandfather’s twin brother, Philip and Julius Epstein, collaborated on writing the Academy Award-winning screenplay for the great 1942 film “Casablanca” starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman.
Theo’s father, Leslie, is a novelist, has written numerous magazine articles, until last June was director of Boston University’s creative writing program and still teaches fiction there. Theo’s sister Anya is a television screenwriter.
Little wonder, then, that Epstein can write. In his case, though, he’s not writing screenplays or novels, though one might suspect he incorporates fiction into what he writes.
Epstein writes statements. Every time he fires a manager he writes a statement. With each one he demonstrates an improvement in linguistic dexterity.
When Epstein fired Dale Sveum, his first Cubs manager, in 2013 after two seasons, he wrote this statement:
In order for us to win with this group – and win consistently – we must have the best possible environment for young players to learn, develop and thrive at the major league level.
Epstein replaced Sveum with Rick Renteria, who lasted one season (51 weeks by the calendar), only until Joe Maddon became available last October.
Epstein issued this statement upon naming Maddon the Cubs’ 54th manager, his third in three years:
Today we made the difficult decision to replace Rick Renteria as manager of the Chicago Cubs. On behalf of Tom Ricketts and Jed Hoyer, I thank Rick for his dedication and commitment, and for making the Cubs a better organization.
Rick’s sterling reputation should only be enhanced by his season as Cubs manager. We challenged Rick to create an environment in which our young players could develop and thrive at the big league level, and he succeeded. Working with the youngest team in the league and an imperfect roster, Rick had the club playing hard and improving throughout the season. His passion, character, optimism and work ethic showed up every single day.
Rick deserved to come back for another season as Cubs manager, and we said as much when we announced that he would be returning in 2015. We met with Rick two weeks ago for a long end-of-season evaluation and discussed plans for next season. We praised Rick to the media and to our season ticket holders. These actions were made in good faith.
Last Thursday, we learned that Joe Maddon – who may be as well suited as anyone in the industry to manage the challenges that lie ahead of us – had become a free agent. We confirmed the news with Major League Baseball, and it became public knowledge the next day. We saw it as a unique opportunity and faced a clear dilemma: be loyal to Rick or be loyal to the organization. In this business of trying to win a world championship for the first time in 107 years, the organization has priority over any one individual. We decided to pursue Joe.
While there was no clear playbook for how to handle this type of situation, we knew we had to be transparent with Rick before engaging with Joe. Jed flew to San Diego last Friday and told Rick in person of our intention to talk to Joe about the managerial job. Subsequently, Jed and I provided updates to Rick via telephone and today informed him that we will indeed make a change.
We offered Rick a choice of other positions with the Cubs, but he is of course free to leave the organization and pursue opportunities elsewhere. Armed with the experience of a successful season and all the qualities that made him our choice a year ago, Rick will no doubt make an excellent major league manager when given his next chance.
Rick often said he was the beneficiary of the hard work of others who came before him. Now, in the young players he helped, we reap the benefits of his hard work as we move forward. He deserved better and we wish him nothing but the best.
We have clung to two important ideals during our three years in Chicago. The first is to always be loyal to our mission of building the Cubs into a championship organization that can sustain success. The second is to be transparent with our fans. As painful as the last week was at times, we believe we stayed true to these two ideals in handling a sensitive situation. To our fans: we hope you understand, and we appreciate your continued support of the Cubs.
Except for mixing a metaphor (using playbook, a football term, in a baseball statement), Epstein probably would earn an ‘A’ for his written statement in Prof. Epstein’s class.
On the other hand, I feel compelled to give Epstein a failing grade for firing Renteria. If, as Epstein said in the statement, Renteria did such a good job last season, why shouldn’t he be allowed to continue doing that job? Last season was the Cubs’ best in four years. Given the improved roster the Cubs are expected to have this year, how does Epstein know Renteria wouldn’t have been able to make even more significant improvement?
I understand the Maddon attraction. He was the hot manager, and his sudden, unexpected availability was too good for the Cubs to pass up, even to the point that the Cubs might have tampered with Maddon, a matter the commissioner’s office is investigating.
Maddon was able to opt out of his Tampa Bay contract because it had a provision that allowed him to leave if the team’s general manager went elsewhere, which Andrew Friedman did, jumping to the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Maddon claimed he didn’t know about the opt-out clause until Friedman left. The Rays, however, filed a tampering charge, suspecting that the Cubs induced Maddon to opt out, getting word to him that if he became a free agent, they would sign him for a lot of money.
Epstein did not return multiple telephone calls seeking comment on several matters involving the Cubs. He has been quoted elsewhere as denying that the Cubs tampered. Alan Nero, Maddon’s agent, has also denied it. I have yet, however, to find someone who tampered and admits it.
This is not the first time in recent years that the Cubs have been suspected of tampering. When they hired Epstein in October 2011 and he hired Jed Hoyer as general manager a week later there was widespread suspicion and speculation that the Cubs had tampered.
However, neither the Red Sox nor the Padres filed tampering charges with the commissioner’s office, and Commissioner Bud Selig had a policy under which he would investigate alleged tampering only if a club filed a complaint.
The commissioner’s office seems to be taking an unusually long time to decide the Maddon matter. However, Commissioner Rob Manfred has said a decision will be disclosed when it is reached.
Even if the Cubs are found to have tampered, the decision would not affect Maddon’s status. The Cubs would most likely be fined or ordered to give the Rays a player or players as compensation.
As I see it, if the Cubs tampered, that would be bad, but what the Cubs have done with Renteria would be worse. They certainly would be within their rights to fire Renteria, but Epstein acknowledged in his statement what a good job the rookie manager did last season.
He deserved the opportunity to manage in the second year of his three-year contract. The Cubs have to pay him for the second and third years of his contract, but if Epstein feels genuinely bad for stripping Renteria of his job, he would pay him for the two option years in the deal.
That, of course, will never happen. Instead Renteria will sit at home in Temecula, Calif., with no job. He is out of baseball while Maddon has been made the toast of Chicago.
The Joe Maddons of the baseball world are always treated as someone special. The Rick Renterias have to scrape and struggle to get where they want to be. And if and when they get there, they are guaranteed nothing even if they do an admirable job.
I had hoped to talk to Renteria about the developments, but he told a friend he didn’t want to talk about what happened, and he didn’t return any of my many calls.
“Rick deserved to come back for another season as Cubs manager,” Epstein said in his statement. He was right, and if his word is any good he would have stuck to it.