2:18pm: The deal is done, according to Gordon Edes of ESPNBoston.com (on Twitter). Hoyer will join Epstein in Chicago and Byrnes will become the Padres' new GM.
10:47am: The Red Sox and Cubs are "finalizing" an agreement that would bring longtime Red Sox GM Theo Epstein to Chicago, according to Bruce Levine of ESPNChicago.com. The teams are expected to announce the deal tomorrow, as MLB has told the Cubs they can hold a news conference during the World Series travel day. Brett Jackson, Trey McNutt and Matt Szczur will not join the Red Sox in the trade, but another prospect will, according to Levine.
The Cubs will name Jed Hoyer their GM within a few days, Levine reports (Epstein would be the club's president of baseball operations). However, the Cubs have not officially asked for permission to interview Hoyer. The Padres will make Josh Byrnes their GM and won't demand compensation for losing Hoyer, according to Levine.
Alex Speier of WEEI.com confirms that Epstein is expected to be named the Cubs' president of baseball operations with Hoyer joining him as general manager. Compensation between the Cubs and Red Sox hasn't been finalized yet, Speier reports.
Epstein is "close" to joining the Cubs, Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports confirms (on Twitter). Jon Heyman of SI.com confirms that Hoyer is also joining the Cubs and notes that Josh Byrnes is becoming San Diego's GM (Twitter links).
Dear Cubs fans,
You still will have to deal with terrible FA signings. Deeply sorry.
Signed,
Red Sox fans
Wow. Epstein and Hoyer ride again…and with plenty of money…a fervent fanbase…and another “curse” to break. If they can wrangle some of the other young guns from around the game, they could make this work.
Now what to do about Soriano and Big Z? Safe to assume they make both problems go away, right?
Do they try to win right away and go after a big fish (ie: Prince/Pujols/Wilson/etc.) or do they wait a year to really get a grasp on what they’re working with?!
“Now what to do about Soriano and Big Z? Safe to assume they make both problems go away, right? ”
Epstein is a baseball executive, not a magician. At best, he makes those problems play somewhere else while paying for the right to get them out of there.
AA could have maybe pulled it off, but no one else.
AA, look at all his moves pitching in the playoffs, the Cards won that trade, not to mention Marcum. Pitching wins not marginal everyday players!
Wait, did you just suggest that the Brewers won the Marcum trade?
You can criticize AA’s GM skills the very moment you manage to move a contract as bad as Vernon Wells and actually profit from it.
The man is a wizard, the end.
At this point you can’t declare a winner for this trade. The Cardinals end has certainly worked out, but if Rasmus plays close to his potential with the Blue Jays, that both teams will have gotten EXACTLY what they wanted. The Rasmus acquisition cannot be judged fully yet.
If I can remember what Theo loves to do with bad contracts, it’s to pay the player to play on another team for league minimum, yep, then when the contract falls off the books in 2-3 years you hold a celebration on who the next FA signing will be because of all the “money coming off the books”, then after a year the cycle continues.
” Brett Jackson, Trey McNutt and Matt Szczur will not join the Red Sox in the trade, but another prospect will, according to Levine. ”
Unless the Padres are inexplicably sending the Cubs a prospect to take Hoyer from them, I don’t see how they could feasibly be sending us anything even remotely useful if not one of them.
I guess I just don’t get this. I thought Theo was going to be paid $18.5 (or whatever exactly it was) to be the GM. What’s the point of bringing him over just to hire another GM? 18.5 sounds like a lot for an office job.
Meh maybe he’s gonna get more power than the GM.
He will be the President of Baseball Operations.
I believe that Hoyer will be reporting to Epstein – President of Baseball Operations is a more senior role than General Manager. I think most GMs around baseball have both titles.
Kind of. There’s 13 teams with a president that sits above the President/Executive VP/GMs. Some guys are considered VP/GM with no president listed on Cot’s, others are president and GM. I imagine some owners choose to be president in title as well, but Cot’s doesn’t list them out with the other FO personnel.
Notable presidents would be Schuerholz with the Braves, Shapiro with the Indians, Beinfest with the Marlins, perhaps Kasten with the Nats, and, of course, Nolan Ryan with the Rangers. Most are notable because they were GMs first…Ryan is notable because he’s the strikeout king. Beinfest is notable to me only because I have never even seen the Marlins GM listed in any article regarding trades, etc. He apparently does exist, though.
It’s just a guess, but I imagine many of the teams that keep a president separate from the GM do so because that person is also very adept at making organizational moves – finding great minor league coaches and getting them to move to their organization, producing great scouts, etc. They provide an organizational service outside of player personnel. Obviously, some GMs are also very good at this as well, so another set of eyes is helpful but not always necessary.
-C
vitters was the guy sox wanted all along?
rigthanded 5-tool potential. high ceiling.
try 3 tool-vitters is at best average in speed & defense.
Great, another prospect that will never play for the Sox!
A new organization might help Vitters. The Cubs have been waiting for him to show something for years, and it has not been happening.
Vitters drew less than ten unintentional walks this year, IIRC. He’s being moved off third base for shaky defense. He stole four bases against ten times caught stealing. He hit 14 home runs in only his second mostly healthy season as a minor leaguer. His career high is 18. He has a career minor league OPS of .758 with 85 errors in 384 games playing the field.
Josh Vitters the draft pick was considered a five tool player. Josh Vitters the minor leaguer is shaking out to have a ceiling more like Edwin Encarnacion… and that’s MAYBE if his power and patience improve.
I can’t believe the Padres aren’t going to get any compensation and are just going to let Hoyer leave in a lateral move. This is very upsetting, I’m very disappointed in Moorad.
COLLUSION!
(Sorry, just seemed like the thing to do when talking about the Padres)
And it only took twelve minutes for someone to justify this statement. Impressive.
go to hell
This makes the Gonzalez trade look suspicious! I guess the Astros and the Padres are just feeder programs.
First Task for Theo: get rid of Zambrano ASAP
the marlins will be happy to take him
Can we have Logan Morrison in return? Hey why not shoot for the stars right? lol
I’m more than happy just to unload Z…
Good for Jed Hoyer, joining a much more desirable organization. The Padres just so far away from competing.
Their payroll’s lower, but they’ve got a much better farm system. They also don’t have any massive albatross like Zambrano or Soriano. I think it’s very much debateable which team is closer to competing.
When was the last time the Cubs made the playoffs? The padres have been very competitive, at least they where during the 2004-2007, 2010 seasons.
This. It’s not like the Padres weren’t knocking on the door of the wild card and division a year back. They have built a system that should work for them and have some real talent in the minors.
-C
No compensation for Hoyer, huh? You mean that letting an executive move to a position of greater power/responsibility without requiring compensation is the norm? Kinda makes the Red Sox organization look like a bunch of dicks, to be honest. Not a stellar season for their PR department.
“You mean that letting an executive move to a position of greater power/responsibility without requiring compensation is the norm?”
Apples to oranges.
For one, they’re not, Hoyer’s going from GM to GM.
Secondly, Hoyer was not Moorad’s first choice and allegedly he’s getting his first choice as a result.
Thirdly, and most importantly, Epstein is one of the most highly regarded baseball executives in the MLB, Hoyer was just wrapping up his second season as a GM and has yet to really make a mark.
I don’t know where you get your info, but it is very clear that you’ll make thing up to acommodate your version of reality: Moorad’s first choice was “whatever Lucchino recommends” (he even went on the radio and said: our first choice is Hoyer, who comes with great recommendation cards from former Padres President Larry Lucchino), and Lucchino sent Hoyer.
Hinch was not his first choice because AJ was still with the DBacks as manager (yeah, he went to the winter meetings looking for a job in 2006 but the Padres back then had Kevin Towers).
It sounds like the Padres, at this point at least, like the idea of having Byrnes move into the GM role enough to not be too bothered by losing Hoyer.
Except for the fact that Hoyer is making a lateral move, not a “move to a position of greater power/responsibility,” so the no compensation thing is just strange.
The compensation doesn’t work just when somebody is allowed to move to a position of greater responsibility, is what a teams ask for in compensation for allowing their worker to change teams.
I was responding to a specific statement about Hoyer getting a promotion, which isn’t happening. I know how compensation works.
Yea the red sox do look like a bunch of dicks. Yea Hoyer isnt as highly regarded as epstein but the Padres are like “eh we have a replacement, if he wants to go let him” the red sox are “we have a replacement and hes only under control for a year and he doesnt wanna be here and its not that common to ask for a top prospect or garza for compensation but heck lets drag it out for 2 weeks”.
Will the Padres finally get their compensation when they file tampering charges with MLB?
They won’t do that, Moorad wanted to get rid of the guy who was asking 18-19 millions a year to be with them, but Adrián’s petitions were never heard; so Moorad asked Hoyer to seek a trade, a trade that Hoyer only fielded to the bosox because he said “it is the organization i know first hand”, and in the end the Padres got what Hoyer debscribed as “the best i could get”, because in his own words a few monts into the season he also said something that is very weird to those who have followed the Padres: “we didn’t know how valuable Adrián was to the organization”.
Yeah right, Adrián produced a third of San Diego’s power numbers at the offensive (RBI, Runs, doubles and Homeruns) in the season Hoyer was their GM.
Yeah, when you have dinner with the Padres owner and Jed Hoyer I can definitely see how you might claim the Cubs didn’t have permission to talk…
No compensation for Hoyer??? Can someone explain what’s up?
I’m guessing it’ll still be cash. He’s still under contract through 2013, so it would be like stealing if we could just waltz in to his office, help him pack up, and fly him to Chicago.
Moorad always wanted Josh Byrnes to be his GM anyway. This is a way to get his guy in there without having to can a perfectly nice young GM.
Two Epstein posts in a row. No one cares at this point. He is going to the Cubs, will get paid and the Sox will some players or cash.
Slow news week…
How about a article on how badly the Braves stink. How their FO and on field mgt is clueless and their players ill equipped to make a legimate post season run.
Or better yet – a nice rumor from MLB asking Liberty to sell the team b/c they don’t give two figs about their success.
Because none of those things are true.
Well, except maybe the Liberty selling the team…either way, Wren and Schuerholz were in charge of the team’s budget, not Liberty. They have said repeatedly that there’s never been a time when they have even had to ask them if they can make this move or that. As long as they keep the team profitable, they’re free to do as they please.
-C
A text message to Quade on Friday morning- “Mr. Epstein would like to see you in his office right away.”
And now the Padres and Diamondbacks have pretty much traded their entire front offices straight up for each other.
I guess stealing one GM isn’t enough to they have to take one from another team as well? Odd.
Well stealing is part of the game.
” Brett Jackson, Trey McNutt and Matt Szczur will not join the Red Sox in the trade”
So either Josh Vitters or Andrew Cashner then? I’ll take both please.
I don’t think that there is any way at all that the Cubs get rid of Cashner. Vitters might be on his way to Boston though.
Cashner is not either, as in no MLB talent will leave the Cubs. Cashner was on the 25-man.
Please take Carmine with you, Theo.
Wait, what’s Epstein going to do for the Cubs if Hoyer is going to be the GM?
His best Lucchino impression?
“It’s my turn now! Muahahaha!”
I would laugh so hard, but only for a few days. Then I’d go right back to feeling sorry for Cubs fans as opposed to spiteful.
Considering the Cubs plight for over a century, wouldn’t the higher up..i.e. ownership just give the Red Sox a few good prospects? Not only will they get Theo, but they also will get all of his friends. Building a powerful front office staff to finally attempt to end a century of futility should be worth some player with the last name “McNutt”. That’s my 50 cents..
If only names mattered.
Guess Pujols really bucked that trend.
Why give players up when you don’t need to? We’ll have to wait and see who will go to Boston, but you’re right, either way the Cubs come out a winner.
That’s my TWO cents. 😉
Theo most likely President of baseball operations. Hoyer GM
Congrats Mr. Epstein, Here’s a open can of worms
So…..we still don’t know the compensation. Thanks for nothing, then.
They cant release it until tomorrow with Game 2 of the W/S tonight.
They also still haven’t decided on it.
I want to know who and or what Boston is going to get! Ozzie landed two decent prospects, Theo is a proven “GM”, not only a manager, but a GM – so Boston better be getting something good! I’ll say it again, here’s to hoping one of Boston’s bad contracts goes with Theo.
Yeah, I’ll believe it when I see the press conference and/or here what, if any, compensation there was. This basically falls in line with the rest of today.
Writer 1: It’s done!
Writer 2: No, it’s not!
Writer 1: Yes, it is!
Writer 2: No, it’s not!
Writer 1 Again: Maybe it is?
Writer 3: It probably isn’t!
Writer 4: No, guys, it totally is and we mean it this time!
From Gordon Edes: “To clarify: Hoyer as Cubs GM, Byrnes as Padres GM is done. Epstein to Chi not yet resolved per compensation. Review of medicals remains.”
Ugh ugh ugh.
Fffffffffffffffffffffffff.
Writer 4: Okay, just kidding, guys, it’s not done.
I’m at the point where I find this so amusing from a “what else can go stupid” standpoint that I kind of hope that any given prospect involve turns out to not actually have any legs and this just goes on and on forever.
For clarification purposes, I mean that literally. I’m not saying a slow baserunner, I mean a guy literally who has no legs. Lt. Dan has been offered to the Red Sox as compensation for Epstein.
3:14 PM: Gordon Edes of ESPNBoston.com thinks that Gordon Edes of ESPNBoston.com is full of crap and wrong. It’s not done.
WHYYYYYY?!
I’m shocked Theo brought Hoyer with him. I assumed it was better for Theo to let Jed stay in San Diego and trade all of his stars to the cubs for overrated/hyped prospects….like the Agon deal! Hoyer would stay there until the SD ownership realized he was a Theo puppet, and then fire him. Theo would then repay his buddy by hiring him in Chicago.
So his reward for leaving Theo’s employment to go destroy another franchise would be…being employed by Theo?
GENIUS!!!
This is terrible on Moorad’s part if this is true. The Padres should be getting compensation for losing Hoyer since this is not a “title” promotion. The Padres finally put together a complete front office and were heading in the right direction on scouting and player development and now this! I declare shenanigans.
If Hoyers’ only 2 drafts pay off the way they look like the may, he will have made a mark that Padre fans may never forget. I realize not every prospect pans out, but he and McLeod sure brought a ton of talent into the system the last 2 years through trades, the draft, and international signings. You will be missed Mr. Hoyer.
Hinch is not in the mix for GM. It is Byrnes who Moorad has a man crush on and he was still employed by the D-Backs when Hoyer was hired. I’m sure if Moorad knew how easy it is to hire another teams executives, while not having to give them a promotion, he would have hired Byrnes in the first place.
As a Padre fan, even if Moorad would rather Byrnes be his GM, letting Hoyer walk with 2 years left on his deal is a little strange.
The Gonzalez deal will work out just fine for the Padres in the end.
Man give us starlin castro for jed hoyer
the padres are better than the cubs and red sox
well see who has a ring cubs or padres
castro is off limits at any price
since none of the cubs top 4 prospects involved maybe a few average type
prospects and cubs agree to take lackey off sox hands,any speculation
castro involved is just insane,cashner or possibly vitters since his
devolpement been slower then expected one of them possible far as high
end prospects if the cubs get desperate enough to get this
done……boston holds all the cards here so im sure they are trying to
get a mint knowing how bad the cubs org. wants this.
Barney an outside shot be involved he had a very good rookie year and he could slide right in at short for the soxs,and the cubs still have baker under contract and another rookie le maieu they like.