San Francisco general manager Brian Sabean, a graduate of Concord (N.H.) High School, has also been mentioned as a possibility.

Balls of summer, if they're going to try to be the Yankees with 65% of the budget, my guess is they'll win 65% of the number of games. This team has to get younger, fast

This is terrible. Can someone explain where CHB comes into the eqation , please?

Let's start with Theo being a ''baseball guy" while Larry is a lawyer with a lofty title (CEO). Granted, Epstein is a student of the game, but it's a mistake to say he knows more about baseball than Lucchino or anyone else in the Red Sox baseball operation. Theo is 31 years old and did not play baseball past high school. He spent four years at Yale and three years at law school. That hardly leaves time for much more than rotisserie league scouting. He can read the data and has a horde of trusty, like-minded minions, but we're not talking about a lifetime of beating the bushes and scouting prospects. Lucchino was a good high school baseball player and made it to the NCAA Final Four with Princeton's basketball team. He came to baseball as an executive in 1979, when Theo was 5 years old. That doesn't make him George Digby or Ray Boone, but he's not Les Otten, either.

So that's why they signed Renteria to block Ramirez and Varitek to block Shoppach? It doesn't look to me like the Sox are at all interested in getting younger.

My prediction with the Phillies is that they will show some interest in Theo, get distracted and lose Hunsicker to Tampa and Gillick to LA, and then when Theo decides to go to San Diego or leave baseball altogether to herd goats in Tibet for a year the Phils will be left to chose between a freshly fired Jim Bowden and Ruben Amaro Jr.

The initial driving force behind the spirited discussions had been Red Sox CEO Larry Lucchino, who had been incensed by Manny Ramirez’s recent behavior... Lucchino’s willingness to part with Ramirez, the AL’s home run and RBI leader entering the weekend, who was booed at Fenway Park on Friday night during each plate appearance, had created a division within the Sox hierarchy. GM Theo Epstein and other front-office personnel were against trading Ramirez, realizing that would be the start of a need to retool the entire team.

On Friday night, the Rockies dealt outfielder Eric Byrnes to Baltimore for Bigbie with the express purpose of flipping him to the Sox for Shoppach and Stern. The two teams had completed the necessary paperwork with the commissioner's office, but the Sox pulled out of the deal.

According to multiple baseball sources, the deal was killed by Red Sox ownership, which reportedly objected to the sheer number of players coming and going from the organization as the team discussed multiple trades involving slugger Manny Ramirez.

The Red Sox backed out. Monfort spoke directly with Red Sox president Larry Luccino, with whom he has had a good relationship in the past. "He said there were communication issues," Monfort said. "For a guy who's been in the business for as long as he has to operate that way, it's frustrating."

The one mess was the six player deal between Boston and Colorado that the Rockies thought was done Friday night. Theo Epstein has long liked Larry Bigbie, and the Rockies did the Bigbie deal with Baltimore to move him to Boston with first baseman Ryan Shealy for Adam Stern, Abe Alvarez, Kelly Shoppach and a minor leaguer.

The offer that was faxed from Boston to Colorado was not signed, or a final document. It was negotiated by assistant GM Josh Byrnes because Epstein was consumed by the Ramirez trade and trying to get Ramirez calmed down and repair his damaged feelings. It never occurred to Epstein that a simple baseball deal that did not involve money was something ownership would consider objectionable. But, indeed, ownership and its assistant, Larry Lucchino, did object, because they were focused on the Ramirez deal.

So Lucchino nixed the deal, which -- rightly -- incensed Dan O'Dowd and the Rockies. But when Lucchino called Colorado owner Charlie Monfort, he threw Byrnes under the bus and did not accept the responsibility of killing it.

---------------

On Wednesday, Red Sox management agreed to keep quiet. At 8 a.m. Thursday, Lucchino did just the opposite, and Ramirez felt that he'd been lied to. When Ortiz and Millar talked to Manny, they knew Francona had already talked to him, and they told him not to worry about Lucchino. "He knows Larry wants him out of there," says one Red Sox player. "But he was told, 'Look, Larry hates all the players. Ask Jason Varitek. Ask anyone. You're not alone.' "

Theo to Dodgers, Sabean to Boston, DePo in SF, maybe, though I suspect Ned Coletti or maybe #### Tidrow would have the inside track to replace Sabes.

his is terrible. Can someone explain where CHB comes into the eqation , please?

It's because of this article CHB wrote on Sunday, which everyone says was planted by Lucchino. Here's a highlight:

Yeah, that's why Jon Papelbon, who had about 30 innings of major league experience, was their primary set-up man in the playoffs.

It is not known whether that is the Red Sox' final offer, but it is believed that the matter will be resolved either way in the next 24-48 hours. While money is a major factor in the negotiations, it is growing increasingly apparent that there are other issues, namely a personality clash in management styles between Lucchino and Epstein that transcends chain-of-command questions.

And so, just three short years after celebrating Theo Epstein as their shining baby boy, the Red Sox are smearing their once-favorite son. They are trying to make him look like a spoiled and ungrateful brat, which makes you wonder whether things at Fenway Park ever change at all.

Theo could be gone soon, Red Sox followers. It may be just a matter of time now. Negotiations between Epstein and club president Larry Lucchino long ago became personal, so Lucchino and friends have launched into spin control, full speed ahead. Young Theo Epstein, it seems, has been ousted from the circle of trust as if he were a hardball embodiment of the unraveling Gaylord Focker.

...........

All of that brings us back to the Red Sox, Epstein and Lucchino, the latter of whom's behavior is growing astonishingly predictable. When the Red Sox failed in the Alex Rodriguez negotiations – and thank goodness for that – Lucchino blamed the players' union. When the Red Sox traded Nomar Garciaparra, members of the Red Sox (guesses, anyone?) leaked information to make the shortstop out to be the villain. And now, in the worst transgression of all, Red Sox management is smearing one of its own in the most sacrosanct negotiation, one that should have been conducted exclusively within the gilded walls of the front office at 4 Yawkey Way.

...there are other issues that could get in the way of a settlement.

Those issues revolve around management style and other philosophical differences that have left some members on the baseball operations side privately expressing anger at the way they are regarded by the Sox' hierarchy, i.e. Lucchino, who has always taken an active role in baseball decision-making with the Red Sox, as well as the other teams he previously served as CEO, the San Diego Padres and Baltimore Orioles. Lucchino has publicly denied ''chain of command" issues but otherwise has vowed to keep negotiations private.

Sources familiar with Epstein's thinking said he does not question the propriety of reporting to the CEO but chafes at times at the degree to which Lucchino involves himself in baseball decisions, and at a perceived lack of respect toward the baseball side.

Epstein's contract expires Monday, and sources familiar with the negotiations say no announcement is expected over the weekend. The sides reportedly are still working toward an agreement on monetary issues after spending most of Thursday discussing the dynamics of the professional relationship between Epstein and CEO Larry Lucchino, which has been strained during the recent contract talks.

Greater autonomy for the baseball operations department that he heads is one of the chief battles Epstein was waging, with the general manager attempting to come to terms with his mentor, team president and CEO Larry Lucchino, on an acceptable and satisfying working relationship.

Epstein had come close to agreeing to a deal Saturday evening but had not officially conveyed acceptance of it. On Sunday, he began having serious misgivings about staying on. A leading contributing factor, according to sources close to the situation, was a column in Sunday’s Boston Globe in which too much inside information about the relationship between Epstein and his mentor, team president and CEO Larry Lucchino, was revealed -- in a manner slanted too much in Lucchino’s favor. Epstein, according to these sources, had several reasons to believe Lucchino was a primary source behind the column and came to the realization that if this information were leaked hours before Epstein was going to agree to a new long-term deal, it signaled excessive bad faith between him and Lucchino.

Phil,
I have never heard or read an intelligent and thoughtful defense of CHB. Nobody who has a clue likes the turd, and he has been doing it for years. If you feel like ####ing into the wind, here are the emails for the sports editor and shank:

jtsullivan@globe.com

dshaughnessy@globe.com

Phil,
I'm a Cubs fan.

he 31-year-old Epstein was reportedly offered about $4.5 million for a three-year extension -- quadruple his previous salary. But it was still short of the $2.5 million a year the Red Sox offered Oakland's Billy Beane in 2002 before making Epstein the youngest GM in baseball history.

A devotee of statistical analysis who values his scouts as well, Epstein's tenure has been marked by bold adventures that often conflicted with baseball orthodoxy:

--He signed first baseman Kevin Millar, despite an unspoken agreement not to poach from Japanese clubs.

--He went without a traditional closer in his first year, with disastrous results.

--He tried to trade for reigning MVP Alex Rodriguez -- a deal that would have meant shipping out Manny Ramirez and Nomar Garciaparra -- and then, without remorse, pulled the plug when the deal became too expensive.

--He ate Thanksgiving dinner with Curt Schilling in a college football-style recruiting trip that lured the right-handed ace to Boston.

--He traded Garciaparra, the face of the franchise, for the parts he needed to complete the World Series puzzle.

The Red Sox reached the AL championship series in 2003 before the lack of a closer doomed Grady Little in Game 7 at Yankee Stadium. The next year, with a new manager and the closer it had lacked, the ballclub won its first World Series in 86 years.

The Dodgers, Phillies and Devil Rays have GM openings, but none has a $120 million payroll to match the one Epstein was given in Boston.

I'm just curious--why was Epstein's initial contract only two years?

Since the meetings are in New York, Torre might attend, and Gene Michael, whom Cashman wants back in the loop after being pushed aside by Steinbrenner, could be there, too.

The biggest choking dogs I've ever laid eyes on?