Epstein Says Goodbye to Boston

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It’s probably not wise to speculate too much on why Boston general manager Theo Epstein, just 31, dramatically turned down a reported three-year, $4.5 million contract extension yesterday. It’s been widely reported that while negotiating with Boston ownership, Epstein was less concerned with money than with power, so it’s reasonable to assume that he wasn’t given enough, or at least had reason to think that any assurances about facing less interference from above weren’t worth much, and so decided to move on. This is bad news for Red Sox fans, tremendous news for Yankees fans, and deeply strange news for everyone else.


Painting this, as it will be painted by many, as a victory for evil Red Sox CEO/President Larry Lucchino over a noble young genius is silly, just as chortling over the comeuppance handed to a 12-year-old who got too big for his britches would be. Casting blame in one or the other direction ignores the context in which this happened.


The Red Sox are likely worth more than $1 billion right now, partly because of deft business management and partly because the franchise won its first championship since 1918 last year. Lucchino, the executive responsible for, among other things, building the enormously successful Camden Yards for the Baltimore Orioles, has been largely in charge of the business end, such as renovating Fenway Park. He also hired Epstein as an Orioles intern before bringing him to San Diego and then Boston.


Lucchino has also had great power in decisions affecting the team on the field, which makes sense. Any seasoned executive who’s been working in baseball since 1979 and is overseeing a team whose successes and failures impact a billion-dollar business would be derelict not to have power over player personnel – especially with a GM half his age and with half the experience of most of his peers working beneath him.


That being so, it’s still entirely understandable that Epstein would want the restraining hand lifted. By all accounts, he’s been the driving force behind analytically driven acquisitions like Kevin Millar, Bill Mueller, and David Ortiz. This doesn’t seem to be a matter of ego, but of getting the job done properly; when a GM has control over small and medium-size decisions, but forfeits control over deals involving superstar players like Manny Ramirez and Alex Rodriguez, it’s difficult to make everything fit together in a coherent way and according to a long-term plan.


The Red Sox are entering a transition period now, with the team aging and breaking up, and it makes sense that Epstein would want both to do the detail work and lay the foundations of the team that is to come.


So, should the Red Sox have been able author a deal to accommodate Epstein, one that would have given him control over what he felt he needed to have control over while allowing Lucchino proper discretion and oversight?


Perhaps, but if that wasn’t possible, it’s not clear to me why the team would be expected to shift power into the hands of Epstein, whose potential to be the best GM of his generation shouldn’t obscure the fact that his successes have come as part of a committee. One also cannot ignore the fact that Lucchino is a much more accomplished man, well into a career that may see him one day enter the Hall of Fame for his contributions to baseball, nor the fact that Lucchino owns a decent portion of the franchise.


For the Red Sox, the question now is whether Epstein was a valuable but ultimately replaceable cog in a system. Without having had surveillance equipment in the Boston front office over the last few years, there’s no way for me (or anyone in the press) to really answer that, but it’s worth hazarding a guess.


I think Epstein did have unique, irreplaceable skills – not in the area of statistical analysis (there were any number of people who could have pointed out that Ortiz would make a shrewd pickup after the 2002 season), but in working with other people and representing his ideas with clarity and dignity.


Out in Los Angeles, Dodgers GM and former Billy Beane disciple Paul DePodesta, who many thought would prove to be at least as successful as Epstein, was fired over the weekend after a year-and-a-half reign that saw him fail, abjectly and miserably, to conscientiously treat all his employees as people, and to account for the fact that even brilliant plans don’t always work out.


There are a lot of well-educated young men with baseball backgrounds who can be brought in to the Red Sox front office to mediate between the old school and new school advisers floating around, and to argue with Lucchino and owner John Henry. Whether any of them can win everyone’s respect while making sure they win the really important games is an open question, but the fact the Epstein alone among all of baseball’s new breed of GMs has been truly and unquestionably successful makes me think he’s more singular than anxious Red Sox fans might like to think.


tmarchman@nysun.com


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