Major League Baseball announced today that former Red Sox general manager and Cubs president of baseball operations Theo Epstein has joined the commissioner’s office as a consultant to Rob Manfred. Specifically, Epstein will focus his efforts on “on-field matters,” including (but presumably not limited to) the effects that proposed rule changes would bring about. Bruce Levine of 670 The Score first reported (via Twitter) that Epstein, who stepped down from his post with the Cubs earlier this winter, would be named to the new post. Epstein turned away interest from other clubs who had interest in hiring him for a new baseball operations jobs.
“Theo is one of the most accomplished and thoughtful people in our sport,” commissioner Manfred said in a statement announcing the news. “I am grateful that he has accepted our invitation to complement our ongoing efforts and provide his insights on making the best game in the world even better for the next generation of fans.”
From the moment Epstein stepped down from his position with the Cubs, there’s been speculation about him eventually taking a position with the league. Epstein acknowledged at the time that he had played an inadvertent role in damaging the sport’s aesthetic by helping to pioneer an analytics push that has curbed in-game action. He’s also often been an advocate for expanding the reach and appeal of the game. Some have suggested that Epstein himself may even be an eventual successor for Manfred, although Manfred’s current contract runs through the 2024 season.
“It is an honor to assist the efforts by Major League Baseball and the Competition Committee to improve the on-field product, and I appreciate Commissioner Manfred asking me to be a part of these important conversations,” said Epstein in his own prepared statement. “As the game evolves, we all have an interest in ensuring the changes we see on the field make the game as entertaining and action-packed as possible for the fans, while preserving all that makes baseball so special. I look forward to working with interested parties throughout the industry to help us collectively navigate toward the very best version of our game.”
There’s no indication yet as to whether this is a temporary post or a gateway to a more permanent position within the commissioner’s office. Epstein said when he stepped away from the Cubs and rebuffed interest in new baseball ops ventures that he hoped to spend more time with his family. His status as a consultant with the league will keep him involved in the game but afford him more time at home. Presumably, given Epstein’s track record, other clubs will come calling in future offseasons whether he’s under contract or not — but his status as a consultant at least ostensibly leaves the door open for a return to a club’s front office at some point.
Hope he’s honest and tells Manford he’s doing a horrible job.
Hopefully, he can talk sense to the owners going into the next CBA negotiation. A strike or lockout must be avoided.
Owners? Your forgetting the other half.
Saved Red Sox and Cubs and now it’s time for him to save baseball.
Can he work for the Commissioners office and the players union at the same time? Because Manfred’s not alone, Tony Clark on the other side of the field is just as clueless
yea saves the Cubs….inherited a world series caliber core…
huh?
Please, tell us more about all the players he inherited that went on to WS glory for the Cubs
I understand he will consult with GM’s on free agency and teach them how to find the next: Jayson Heyward, EdNOwin Jackson, and Tyler Chatwood. It should be tremendous training. Part II he will teach you how to dump useless talent like DJ Lemahieu for peanuts on the dollar. I can’t wait.
Without Jayson Heyward, Cubs might not win that Game 7 of the World Series. I’m sure they’d make that signing 10 times out of 10 if it got the same results.
A rain delay motivational speech is not worth $184 million dollars. A WS victory does not mean all transactions that team made were not mistakes.
The commissioner is voted into his position by the team owners. He retains this lucrative job at their pleasure.
Who do you believe any commissioner will listen to?
Well he wants to be the next commissioner
I can’t imagine he wants that job at all.
He doesn’t want to run the Mets baseball operations at all either
I can see him wanting to own a team. By paying his dues with MLB in the commissioner’s office, Manfred could prioritize him when a team is up for sale, or at least give him a discount compared to what other owners would pay on it. Then he can invent all the algorithms and sabermetrics he wants since he’ll own the team.
MLB does not set the price of a team, that is up to the owner of the team and the potential buyer.
MLB would set the price on an expansion club though….
Being named President as part of an ownership group when MLB expands is my guess on Theo’s next job. He gets his ownership stripe, he elevates to a team President, which is higher than a President of Baseball Operations, and he gets to help create an organization from scratch. He’ll help MLB on the Commissioner’s side for the next two seasons while MLB gets its house in order to ready for expansion. Theo will have lots of inside knowledge on where MLB is looking, and he’ll then jump to one of the groups looking at expansion. Where he goes is a guaranteed winner, so if you’ve formed an early exploratory group to get one of those expansion teams, you will pay dearly for Theo.
Manfred has recently come out against expansion. It would have a short term injection of cash but already being locked in to the national TV contracts, it would be splitting the same size pies more ways, which means less money for each team and the owners aren’t going to go for it at this time. They just signed an extension to ESPN’s deal and that was already lower than their previous deal. I don’t know when the other national contracts are up. I’m sure they’ll wait until at least 2022 after the CBA has been agreed to and what the environment looks like after COVID–if we have it under control by then.
The ESPN deal is for less than half the games but more money per game. Most of the games that ESPN is not taking MLB is already in negotiations with other platforms to broadcast including Amazon who already is going to be the home of some NFL games.
Overall MLB will be earning $2.25 billion more per season over the next 6 season in national TV revenue on these new TV deals that all begin in 2021.
One of the things that MLBPA is asking for in return for expanded playoffs to the same number of teams that participated in 2020 is a two team expansion to MLB. So we may very well see the start of expansion in 2022.
Expansion teams would each a minimum of a $1 billion entrance fee and possibly more to MLB which would mean about $66.7 million going to each of the other 30 teams.
Keeping the playoffs the way they were this year might be good money in the short term, but I’d be curious about long term. I’m not real interested in watching sub 500 teams compete in the playoffs.
He’s going to need to front a substantially financed group. Personally, I think it’s late to be getting into the run on teams. I just don’t know if these franchise values will see sustained increases. Baseball is going to be a harder sell in the future. They’ve opened up revenue streams, but theyll reach saturation with a shrinking fan base.
Gorilla Suit Chairman
Strike 2
Ah but do you remember the TV show that inspired the gorilla suit?
EPSTEIN FOR COMMISSIONER
Without context on it being Theo, this sounds really funny.
ROFLMAO!!! Wow did you take it to a dark place but ya, if someone yelled that out in a crowded room, the atmosphere may get a little awkward. =))
Dark? I thought Welcome Back Kotter. Were you thinking Jeffrey?
I was
Juan Epstein is funny. That other guy was sick.
Well Theo is extremely intelligent and has also demonstrated a wry sense of humor as a baseball executive, two solid qualifications for him being a future MLB Commissioner!
Anyone over Manfred.
I thought Juan Epstein also!!!
Theo – commissioner after Manfred’s contract is up? That would be after 2024. Unless they fire Manfred. But why would they? Rob’s an owner’s dream. Theo would be more independent.
I’m honestly not sure how Manfred has kept his job given how horrible and public his venture has been. Baseball needs every PR win it can get.
MLB revenue has went from $6.75 billion in 2013, the year before he was named commissioner to $12.3 billion in 2019. I think the owners are quite happy with his leadership.
And baseball has never had a worse place in the public landscape than now. That money is temporary.
Theo Epstein is more than qualified but may want one more shot at running a baseball organization before ultimately settling on the Commissioner post. I’d guess that he would love to return to his beloved Red Sox or perhaps construct a winner from scratch when MLB finally decides on their expansion to 32 teams during this decade. I could also envision Theo having an ownership stake in either of those scenario’s, something that would preclude him from taking the Commissioner job for a while.
Larry may be in a diminished role, but the same.issues in the Red Sox landscape remain that existed when he departed.
Add to that the spectre of becoming a publicly traded team and the lowering of financial resources we’ve been seeing leading up to that, it’s less and less of a fit.
As a gm Theo wants dombrowski-type player control coupled with an open checkbook and his ego likes to be going after a crowning achievement type event ala ‘curse-breaking’ that puts him into the history books.
A new franchise may offer that. Existing gm openings, even impending ones, don’t seem to.
What curse is to be broken at the commissioner’s office? The curse of the DH only in the AL? The curse of stepping on the foul line as you go on and off the feild?
You’re kidding right? How about the only really good commissioner ever, Bart Giamatti, dying after only 5 months on the job?
I don’t think Giamatti is common knowledge for baseball fans. I’m surprised seeing his name splashed up anywhere, really. The only reason I even know about him is because one day I decided I should look at a cursory history of baseball commissioners and his story kind of interested me. To say the least, 51 was to young to die.
As a baseball card collector in the 80’s and 90’s he had a card in the 1990 Donruss Series Card Set. Of it weren’t for that, I’m not sure I would know the name either.
His son is a good actor
Giamatti smoked packs a day. Father of Paul Giamatti. Interesting guy, seemed to love the fans. That’s really what baseball needs. Someone to represent the fans interest. I know we hear about revenue increases…but I’m not sure how that helps the fans who want to enjoy the game. Seems like the game for decades now has just exploited the fans…and that’s been the issue. The game is increasingly diminished on the field. Sorry…I just dont get the marketing point of a company saying how much money they are making off the consumer.
Giamatti is only viewed as good because he wasn’t in office long enough to screw up and piss off fans.
Plus his son is one heck of an actor.
One of the best for sure.
Great position for Theo Epstein to occupy until he decides on his next baseball gig. Theo would also be a prime candidate as a future MLB Commissioner.
I said this weeks ago.
A consulting position or the actual job of Commissioner? There’s a big difference, no?
I maintain Theo’s preference is to run a team again, likely with an ownership stake this time. The actual Commissioner job might be his crowning achievement unless he seeks to be a Democratic Presidential candidate, in which case he would have my full support if I can survive that long past my current age of 65.
We have had plenty of sport ‘celebrities’ and also more than a few Hollywood or TV ones who have sought and gained high political office. More often than not they have been Republicans. I’d like to see more balance on the other side with an actual intelligent human like Epstein leading the charge!
Uh, considering the position is currently occupied, he’ll need to wait a bit. Consultancy keeps him in the holding pattern. It is the only reason he would take the position.
It’s hardly ” the only reason he would take the position”. Epstein could be taking a break between executive gigs while potentially seeking one he deems better that’s not currently open, especially one where he may have a financial stake in it as a minority partner. This is something that his peer Dave Dombrowski was attempting to do with the expansion Nashville franchise group until Manfred informed him that MLB wasn’t ready to expand anytime soon.
LOTS of people said this.
“consultant” ah yes the way to be on payroll and not actually do anything
Pocket money for Theo at this point.
Are you a consultant?
I don’t see Theo being a commissioner. Based on what he said he wants to be part of an ownership group and definately sees himself running a ballclub again. Maybe he hopes to get special treatment when he does join a group by having worked for Manfred. Having said that, I do think he would make a great commissioner.
i kind of agree, not sure he wants that job.
I don’t even think Theo can rid us of the curse that is Rob Manfred.
Doesn’t seem like a good idea IMO…
He resigned weeks ago and suddenly he’s in the Commissioner’s office. Doesn’t seem right at first glance.
I predicted this when he stepped down from the Cubs—he wants to be a commissioner. Given his background/pedigree, it’s just a matter of when, not if.
Theo wolnt be the commissioner. not a yes man.
Yes, indeed he wolnt.
That may not be possible with the way the job is currently structured. It could conceivably change if the MLBPA agrees to become more of a partner with MLB like players are in other sports such as the NBA. Those players actually participate in revenue sharing. That is something the MLBPA has been reluctant to do thus far.
You bring up a point I’ve long conjectured…that we’ll see a players league or atleast a players partnership. They already make a large share of the revenue. Healthy wealth management could definitely make player-ownership a reality.
But I dont like how the NBA operates. The regular season is virtually unwatchable, and the league seems more like a constructed exhibition. Baseball cant get away with trying to pull off a 162 game season like that and still expect to have fans care. We’ve already gone through Contender/Tank scenarios and the game has become unwatchable for many…baseball execs even acknowledge this.
Baseball needs a few Patrick Mahomes…less money talk, less Astros incidents. It needs to be fun.
The guy has proven he can handle a job like that but would he kowtow to the owners? I can’t see that happening but then, that’s more of a guy feeling. I can’t justify that opinion by saying I observed this or that characteristic from the guy so my view on it’s a little soft.
I need a “WOLNT” setting on the message boards: WithOut Lolzmets Nitpicking Takes”
Any time someone refers to baseball as a “product” it makes me a little sad.
Make the game watchable again Theo.
MBGA- Make Baseball Great Again. Okay. I could where that hat. =D
Damn! Should have said “wear”. Sigh. I need to go to sleep. Good night everyone.
Clean out the nerds infecting this game! Send them all back to the Ivy League amd lets see pitchers actually throw 9 innings!!
Epstein is part of the Ivy League. He’s head nerd of the nerd fraternity if we’re comparing accomplishments.
That’s true though he has admitted it makes for an ugly game.
That’s the point that they never seemed to realize would happen. Initially metrics helped teams win…and winning created interest in a team naturally. But now you have 30 teams operating relatively the same. So you have the same game going on all over….operating at the highest level to WIN games…
But WINNING has always only been PART of the attraction. The human element has always been a major major factor on the popularity of the game. What “personality” the game has anymore seems to be negative…PED…Astros..revenue harping…ego stars like Bryce Harper. Way too many intrusions INTO the game by outside things. That’s maybe great for a more intense fan…but those fans are a dying breed.
Epstein hanging around
Baseball has NEVER done anything to help the pitchers. So now it’s five inning starters and a parade of relievers, endless at-bats, fake baseballs, TJ surgery for EVERYONE, questionable strike zones, and so on and so forth. Fix the game! Make it move, showcase pitching, have some games that take less than 2:30 to play. Scores like 5-4 and 4-3 should be common, with some lower and some higher.
Raise the mound, push the fences back if-possible, raise the fence height, raise the seams on the baseball for a better grip, enforce umpires to call the strike between the belt and letters, ban arm padding or let pitchers wear arm bands if the hitters can’t take off the protection.
That’ll help the pitchers and move the game in the right direction. Everyone wants to watch the aces pitch. Build more aces.
Amen bro!
I actually just think the robot strike zone and a good grip baseball will help a lot.
I want the triple to come back. And I would like to see hitting become intriguing again. The way the game has “dumbed down” the hitting position and allowed hitters to do almost whatever they please, watching massive bombs or high scoring isn’t what it used to be. Any intriguing pitcher can’t stay healthy long enough enough. Only a select few and even they find the IL.
the at bat thing is interesting. long at bats can be cool, but you gotta wonder if saying if you cant get the ball in play before you see 10 pitches you should be out makes sense. maybe even make it lower. that helps starters stay in a game longer. i get working the count, but how much does a 14 pitch pop out or K cause fans to tune out?
Easily the dumbest thing I’ve read all week.
#1 – Automated Strike Zone. Get it right every time. Also gets rid of pitch framing.
#2 – Change Arbitration for batters so high strike out rates = lower pay and high BA or OBP = higher pay.
#3 – Ban body armor at the plate. Too many batters crowd the plate or even lean over it because they know they have the armor. Give the inside corner back to the pitchers.
#4 – Raise the seams on the ball. The current lower seams artificially inflate HR numbers.
#5 – Batters have to stay in the batters box.
#6 – 24 second pitch clock
#7 – Get rid of the DH.
3 also gives pitchers the outside corner back and more hitters will flinch on slider/curve without that added protection.
I still think raising the mound should be in the cards. If not from 10 inches to 15, at least 12.
You were on a roll until your last suggestion. Fact is, very few pitchers can hit their weight. The DH has been a part of professional and amateur baseball for some time now, possibly contributing to this fact. The DH is not going away. Its presence also has a minimal influence on modern MLB baseball and the alleged strategy factor involved when pitchers are forced to hit, especially in this new age of advanced analytics.
As a long time baseball fan, I would like to see more of a balance between old school baseball and the new school of sabermetrics. This need not involve the elimination of the DH which was adopted by the AL in 1973. There were few more exciting teams in my 65-year old fandom than the 3-time champion Oakland A’s of 1972-1974. They won one title without the DH and two more with it. Throughout their domination, they beat teams with small ball and mashed them with power. The 1989 A’s did likewise. They drove opponents crazy with Rickey Henderson SB’s and Mark McGwire HR’s.
The SB’s have diminished while the HR’s have increased. Was this because of the DH? No, it was because of the increased reliance on advanced analytics which has become more dominating every year. In the meantime, small ball strategy is going out the window. Stolen bases, hitting behind runners and sacrifice bunts have been replaced by launch angle, exit velocity and excessive shifts. Even in the NL where sacrificing is a bit more common because of pitchers who can’t hit, the success rate isn’t all that great because the majority of them can’t bunt either.
Bartolo Colon must’ve had a pretty good batting average then.
Irregardless (just to piss off lolzmets), mathematics have penetrated the entire fabric of baseball. They’re not going away, but they don’t toe the rubber or lead off first. Players still need to play the game, and the game is fun to me. If you don’t like it, don’t watch it.
The challenge with a game as old as baseball is to make changes that make a difference, but don’t completely alter the game. The intentional walk rule change was a great example of a positive change that had almost no effect on anything other than to speed the game up.
44 seconds per game faster on average.
I knew it the entire time. So much for “taking a year off” to “spend time with family”. Now he’ll have the inside opportunity for any front office position a year from now.
Sleeper pick: The Yankees and Cashman come to an agreement for him to step down and/or retire, and Theo replaces him in New York. He’s already taken care of business in Boston and Chicago and is probably the greatest executive of all-time — since Mr. Brad Pitt-Beane hasn’t won a single World Series — so why not cement his legacy in New York?
Dumpster diving commissioners office
Next comish. Writing is on the wall
As far as rule changes, get rid of that stupid baserunner in extra innings. That ain’t baseball.
Yeah that is so cheesy.
Theo for commish wouldn’t be a bad idea at all. I remember when Henry first hired him, and Theo would hide in the bathroom whenever a reporter came in.
He morphed from there into being one of the more media-savvy guys in the business. Everybody loved Theo; everybody wanted him to marry their daughter (or their son, as some in the media speculated…..hey, it’s Boston).
But I’ll give him that he was one of the most honest and frank and direct guys out there. He can play a room, whether it’s with James Taylor and Peter Gammons all playing guitar, or talking serious baseball.
In short, he’d be great. (Oh ya, bright guy, obviously). He’d be the anti-Manfred. And for fun, he’d probably wear that “Make Baseball Great Again”.
If he could only drafted a decent pitcher in Chicago.
Just don’t let him consult over MiLB teams. He has a tendency to destroy those…
This article should’ve come with free popcorn for the comments. Talk about opening a door…
Hmm. Wonder whats inside this green can?