And others gems from the somewhat advanced squad leader.
Former Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling joined Sports Saturday to talk baseball in advance of the Red Sox’ doubleheader with the A’s.
The Cubs have an opening at general manager, and there has been speculation that Red Sox GM Theo Epstein could have interest. Schilling said it’s a definite possibility.
“That wouldn’t surprise me. It really wouldn’t surprise me,” he said. “I think the challenge, though, is that Red Sox baseball is part of his blood and his DNA. But if you’re looking at the only challenge left for him in the game, that would be it. I think there’s a lot of ifs there, I don’t know.”
On spending big money on a closer:
“I don’t know, short of [Mariano] Rivera, maybe Joe Nathan for a stretch, has any closer ever been worth it? It was a fantastic conversation we had a week or two ago, we were talking about the [Albert] Pujols deal and what he might end up getting. If you can go back in baseball history and take players in free agency, can you name one player in the last 10 years that you can hand pick that was worth an eight-year contract? Has there ever been one? Look at closers over the last 10 years and you throw out a four- or five-year deal for a closer. How many closers have actually been worth it?”
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1. McCoy Wilfong for Money Posted: August 27, 2011 at 11:38 PM (#3910558)ARod.
Manny Ramirez
Jim Thome
Not in the last 10 years.
Todd Helton
Derek Jeter
You wouldn't want Manny from 2001 to 2008? Or 2002 to 2009?
You wouldn't want Thome from 2001 to 2008?
He got 7 last time, I doubt he gets more. I'd expect the Yankees to extend him 2-3 yrs. at $25-27M per on the extra years.
On Theo, I mean, I don't expect that to happen, but it sure would be a story. The GM who ended the Red Sox WS drought getting a shot in Chicago? If Theo wants to be famous, if he wants to be the story, if he wants a serious historical legacy, it could be pretty appealing.
I think Epstein already has that.
I doubt he would move. He has a great situation right now, is on great terms with the owner, and gets to work in his hometown. Unless he's the type that has that driving need to keep proving something to himself (and he doesn't strike me as that type, since he resigned in that squabble with Lucchino a few years ago), he's not going to leave.
I think Cashman would be more likely, because I don't get the impression he's all that enamored with the working relationship he has with Steinbrenner fils. And even that's a bit of a stretch, I think. He would have to be blown away with the pitch the owner gave him.
I'm not saying Theo will, or is likely to leave, for reasons such as you list, but if he has any ego at all, he must be thinking about it.
Baseball fans will. Maybe he won't be a household name but he's already secured his legacy in MLB circles.
He is respectively hated in NY and always will be.
Are you arguing that a GM who won the first WS in Boston in decades and then the first WS for the Cubs in a century wouldn't be remembered in a qualitatively different way from a GM who pulled off only one of those two? Are you arguing that it wouldn't be appealing to a person to have a chance to hit that exacta?
It depends on the person. And I don't think Epstein is the type that sort of thing matters a whole lot to. He's already in a great situation.
You're 100% right, of course. I don't much like the Cubs, and can't stand the Red Sox, but when the Cubs finally do win it, it is going to be a huge deal. If Epstein were the GM both times, that would be one of the primary angles of the media coverage. Personally, I am hoping the Indians get off the schneid first, but the Cubs will be a much bigger story nationally. I knew many non-baseball fans in San Diego who followed the 2004 ALCS and WS--same would happen with the Cubs.
Whether such an opportunity would appeal to Epstein enough to get him to leave a great gig like he has now is another question. I am sure it would take a massive salary offer.
Wild-ass mindreading: I would think the romance/narrative/opportunity etc. of the Cubs' job might appeal to Billy Beane or Brian Cashman. Walt Jocketty seems to like the Cincinnati job well enough, but I think the Chicago gig might appeal to him as well.
White Sox fans and Ozzie Guillen.
Don't forget to add in another opt-out clause!
Never been to a convention. Only 50.
Ed Barrow
Warren Giles
Pat Gillick
Larry MacPhail (though he was a part-owner for a while)
Lee McPhail (though he probably made it for being a league president)
Branch Rickey
George Weiss
The list could be a little longer or a little shorter depending on what you do with people who cycled through various roles and what you do with the 19th century and Negro Leagues people.
But Branch Rickey is famous with Jackie Robinson. And who is #2? Is it really likely that Gillick will be remembered, even in Toronto and Philly, in 25 years? Or Epstein and Cashman once they've been retired a decade or so?
I think Rickey is the only GM who is really famous, due, as you say, to Robinson, although Rickey of course did much more than that.
But, GMs are perhaps watched more closely today due to FA and sabermetric infiltration into the MSM. I suppose the most famous GM today is actually Beane.
Still, the same guy being GM of the Curse-Breaking Red Sox and Goat/Garvey/Bartman-burying Cubs would be a huge deal, and I think it would get Epstein's name into the minds of a lof of casual fans in addition to making him a hero to two huge national fanbases.
I think the clean owner-GM-manager split with three different people holding down those jobs, and the general knowledge of who GMs are is a very recent phenomenon. I was a HUGE Orioles fan in the late 1970s / early 1980s. That was a hugely successful team for a long time. I'm drawing a complete blank on who the GM of that team was. The Orioles of the 1960s - 1980s were credited to Earl Weaver.
Branch Rickey is, of course, sui generis, because of Jackie Robinson (and, for more serious fans of baseball history, basically his invention of the modern farm system).
But the earliest generation of GMs who were potentially famous for being GMs, I think was probably Pat Gillick and Sandy Alderson. So, it's really far too soon to tell how more recent GMs, like Beane and Epstein, will be remembered 25 years from now, because I don't think there are good useful historical precedents.
What's going to be really cool is when Wake becomes the Red Sox pitching coach a few years down the road, and then eventually Varitek's bench coach and, inevitably, manager.
Al Campanis?
I was under the impression that Variteks disdain for catching Wake extended to something personal in the past.
It reminds me of Beltran's contract with the Mets, 7 years and 25mil more than the Yankees were offering, and Boras STILL got the Mets to agree not to offer arb at the end of the deal, which, of course, cost the Mets when they dealt Beltran this year.
How did it cost them? They got a top pitching prospect from the Giants. A prospect that has already had some developmental time and has shown himself to not be overmatched if worth far more than a supplemental round pick a year from now.
I don't believe either part of that sentence is correct.
I think that vastly misstates and misunderstands, the place of a baseball GM in the national mindset. If Theo leaves, it's because he wants the challenge of 'doing it somewhere else' since he surely knows the national impact of winning it elsewhere (even as a 'second win') will be a lot smaller than it was when he 1) won it in Boston and 2) won it with the media-friendly 'boy genius wins for hometown team' storyline.
Not if "elsewhere" is the North Side of Chicago. There is not quite as much BS/navel-gazing/books etc. about the Cubs as there were, and are, about the Red Sox, due mostly to the Northeastern corridor media presence and the Boston's numerous near-misses, but if and when the Cubs win the World Series; hell, even if they MAKE it to the World Series, it will be a huge deal. And there is plenty of BS out there about the Cubs now.
Epstein's being GM of BOTH teams would be a very big deal and a nice angle for the media.
I think there is almost no chance that Epstein will actually leave Boston, but if he left to take over the Cubs, it would be a big deal. If they won the pennant or the WS under him, it would be a huge deal. This is a team in a big market in an iconic ballpark with a 103-year drought. No Bambino and Bucky and no Bill Simmons, but they have Bartman and the goat, and it will be huge.
How long were Bonds's contracts?
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