With the Chicago Cubs off to the kind of start that would justify the pre-season projections for their season, Theo Epstein could be in position to become one of the greatest general managers, if not the greatest, of all time.
The vast majority of the season remains to be played and then there are the perilous playoffs. But if the Cubs were to win the World Series, Epstein would be in a position no one has ever imagined, let alone achieved.
Epstein was Boston’s general manager when the Red Sox won the World Series in 2004 for the first time in 86 years. He is now president of baseball operations of the Cubs, who haven’t won the World Series in 108 years.
What are the chances that one man could pull off both incredibly long-shot feats? If one man did pull off both feats, how should he be recognized? As far as I can figure, there’s only one way: open the doors at 25 Main Street in Cooperstown, N.Y., waving the mandatory five-year waiting period following retirement.
Lest anyone think I’m saying that facetiously, know that I am serious. How else reward an executive for doing an exemplary job? It would be more than exemplary. It would be unique, unparalleled, unprecedented, never to be equaled in our lifetime.
The Cubs, who have the best won-lost record in Major League Baseball, at the moment are better than the 2004 Red Sox, who finished second in the American League East and won the World Series as a wild card. Before Sunday’s games, the Cubs had a 27-8 record. After 35 games in 2004, the Red Sox had a 20-15 record.
In building both teams, Epstein employed similar strategies. Key to the success in both instances was his deft targeting of players in all areas of procurement. His best trick was using two different types of procurement for the same players with his two different teams.
The player is Anthony Rizzo, the Cubs’ first baseman, who is generally considered the heart and soul of the team. When Epstein was running the Red Sox baseball operations, they drafted Rizzo out of high school in the sixth round of the 2007 draft.
At the time, Jed Hoyer was Epstein’s assistant, but in 2010 he was the San Diego general manager and induced Epstein to include Rizzo in a trade for Adrian Gonzalez. Epstein, however, made sure Rizzo wasn’t out of his sight for too long.
Less than three months after Epstein and Hoyer reunited in Chicago, in January 2012, they acquired Rizzo from the Padres for pitcher Andrew Cashner.
The 26-year-old first baseman has been especially instrumental in the Cubs’ early-season surge. Hitting only .163 April 19. Rizzo has since hit .350 with 8 home runs and 22 runs batted in.
For the season he leads the team with 11 home runs, 33 runs batted in and a .620 slugging percentage.
Third baseman Kris Bryant is the only regular the Cubs drafted. They also drafted Kyle Schwarber, who caught and played left field, until he tore a knee ligament and became lost for the season.
The Cubs have a load of players whom they signed as free agents: second baseman Ben Zobrist, left fielder Jorge Soler, center fielder Dexter Fowler, right fielder Jason Heyward, catcher David Ross and starting pitchers Jon Lester, John Lackey and Jason Hammel.
They traded for shortstop Addison Russell and starting pitchers Jake Arrieta and Kyle Hendricks, and they selected closer Hector Rondon in the minor league (Rule 5) draft.
The result of all of those free-agent signings is the highest opening-day payroll the Cubs have ever had – $167 million – but Cubs fans aren’t complaining, and the team owners, the Ricketts family, won’t complain if the Cubs continue to win at their current pace.
This is why the new owners vigorously recruited Epstein after they bought the team in October 2009. He was available because some members of the Red Sox hierarchy were ready to see him go despite two World Series championships in four seasons.
The Red Sox were already a good team when Epstein became their general manager, but good wasn’t good enough.
Under Epstein, who took over in October 2002, the Red Sox made a series of good draft choices, selecting Jonathan Papelbon, Dustin Pedroia, Jacoby Ellsbury, Jed Lowrie, Jackie Bradley Jr. and Mookie Betts. They also drafted Anthony Rizzo, but we’ve been over that.
Epstein also executed a series of signings, just as he would do in Chicago. In retrospect, in terms of Red Sox success and Red Sox history, he made his most significant signing less than two months after he became general manager. He signed David Ortiz, whom the Minnesota Twins had not tendered a contract.
It was believed at the time that the Twins didn’t want to pay Ortiz what he wanted, but Terry Ryan, the Twins’ general manager subsequently told me it wasn’t money; it was just a bad mistake, a failure to realize Ortiz’s ability.
Epstein also signed Bill Mueller, Pokey Reese and Kevin Millar, who would form three-quarters of the 2004 infield, and Keith Foulke, who would be the closer. He acquired Mark Bellhorn to play second base, and he traded for Curt Schilling, who would be the pitching staff’s ace.
Epstein’s pieces de resistance, though, came on July 31, 2004, a day on which he participated in a four-team trade and made a more routine two-team trade.
In the former, he sent the Boston icon, shortstop Nomar Garciaparra, to the Cubs and received two players from two other teams, first baseman Doug Mientkiewicz and shortstop Orlando Cabrera, who would stabilize the leaky Red Sox infield.
In his other trade that day, Epstein sent an unheralded player, Henri Stanley, to the Los Angeles Dodgers for a utility outfielder. That outfielder would play one of the most significant history-changing roles the Red Sox and the New York Yankees will never forget.
With the Yankees ahead 4-3 and three outs away from sweeping the American League Championship Series, Millar drew a leadoff walk. Dave Roberts, the utility outfielder, ran for him. Roberts stole second, then scored the tying run as Mueller singled.
The tie game went to the 12th inning. The Red Sox won it on a two-run home run by Ortiz, then won the next three games and the World Series in which they never should have played but for players named Millar, Mueller, Roberts and Ortiz, all acquired by Epstein.
By not responding to multiple telephone calls, Epstein chose not to discuss his success. I suspect he did not return my calls because he doesn’t appreciate my suggestions in the past that he might have tampered with people he hired, such as Hoyer, contacting them before he was permitted.
No one has ever filed a tampering complaint so the commissioner’s office has never investigated the possibility that Epstein has done anything wrong.
FROM STRIKES TO FORECLOSURES
Arthur Schack was a lawyer for the Players Association from 1982 to 1998. Unlike other union lawyers such as Richard Moss, Donald Fehr and Michal Weiner, Schack made his name and his reputation elsewhere after he left the union.
After two strikes and one lockout, he left to become a judge, first with election to the New York City Civil Court of Kings County and then with election in 2003 to the New York State Supreme Court.
Schack, who used to characterize baseball’s labor as “millionaires against billionaires,” died May 2 at the age of 71. His wife, Dilia, quoted a fellow judge as saluting him as “the master of the little people throughout the country” because of his rulings against major banks seeking to foreclose on their homes.
She told of a visitor to their home in Brooklyn several days after Schack died.
“He was disheveled and had a beard and lots of hair and was wearing jeans and a windbreaker. I didn’t know what to think,” Mrs. Schack said. “I had no idea who he was. He said he lived in New Jersey two hours away but when he read that Arthur had passed away, he said he had to come. He said he had to come. He had to tell me how Arthur saved his house. He said he got his house back.”
It seems that in dealing with foreclosure cases, Schack found that banks were acting illegally, trading mortgages back and forth without notifying the property owners. When his rulings became public, word got around that anyone who was faced with foreclosure should look up Schack’s rulings and use them as a guide.
“The way he wrote the decisions of certain cases people were able to get their houses back,” Mrs. Schack said. “The banks were playing games. Those people were doing something that was illegal. People had a right to know that banks were selling their notes to different banks.”