We would all view Theo as an executive entirely differently if he were forced to stick around to clean up the mess the created at the ends of each tenure.

All those who think he would be a great politician, do you think highly of the politicians who underfunded government pensions during their tenure, passing the problems that causes onto the current generation?

Ben Cherrington paid the price for Theo's sins, just as Jed Hoyer will.

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

Well said.

Theo's strength in Boston was that he was able to rebuild with veterans because he had ownership which was willing to buy expiring contracts and collect compensatory draft picks. With a bunch of those draft picks, they managed to keep restocking the minors with high end draft talent like Pedroia.

Theo gets to Chicago, and a year later the owners changes the rules and require a Qualifying Offer to get draft picks. So part of the spinning through the dregs of 2011-2013 was adjusting to those changes. They got some prospects like Russell and Montgomery by dealing veterans and organizational soldiers, but the volume wasn't there.

So you get to 2017, and other than Happ there really aren't any drafted bullets left in the chamber, and they panic and trade Eloy because they see a logjam in LF and they don't feel that they have any other pieces to get pitching. And after Ricketts saw the 2017 melt down, he balked at the need to purchase talent at market prices.

Fast forward, and I just don't think either Theo or Ricketts sees any hope short of another teardown rebuild right in front of a likely work stoppage. I don't think there's animosity, it's just reality.

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"When people want their version of the truth, they go find it, no matter how baseless their beliefs." -- Ken Rosenthal

From Paul Sullivan: Ricketts will save $10 million with Epstein walking away from the final year of his contract. Making the Theo, Ricketts lovefest Zooms yesterday even sillier.

All the public office talk is silly to begin with. Even if he goes into it someday, his ability to succeed or not has nothing to do with his ability to win World Series. Apples and bowling balls.

Theo has created “messes,” but at the same time, it’s very rare that one leadership team at the exec level leaves the next regime with an ideal situation.

Theo has made plenty of mistakes, but he reached the goal. His job wasn’t necessarily to leave the cupboard full for the next guy. Sure, that would be nice, but it’s not entirely realistic.

The first three seasons in Boston after Theo left they had 2 90 win seasons.

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I haven't followed the thread closely but this seems about right. Why should he be viewed any differently than any other president of a company that does a lot of short term moves gets the stock up and bails when the future looms? He is not leaving the Cubs with bare cupboards but it is a mess.

And he certainly is less than the deity some have and still attempt to portray him as.

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Elections have consequences.

Boston was fine after he left. Some organizations would give him at least a decade to fix this mess. Most wouldn't.

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Theo's REAL strength in Boston was unlimited spending on draft picks. Great talents who were otherwise unsignable for any number of reasons for less financially capable teams would fall in the draft to the Red Sox, who didn't have the same budgetary constraints.

Think of it, if top five talents of every draft fell to a team at 30 every year. Not only that, top talents (acknowledged as such by everyone, including the teams passing on them) were falling down to them in later rounds as well. It didn't take genius to pick these guys. It took convincing an owner it was cheaper to spend for a high priced draft pick (probably less than the MLB minimum) than an MLB free agent.

It was actually JR who put a stop to this as he was never going to be a guy who opened the pocketbook.

Suddenly, Theo no longer had his advantage and had to resort to signing incredibly high priced MLB level free agents. Many of these players underperformed and the rest is really history in Boston.

Now, Chicago, Theo's answer to this was to tank for a handful of years so that he still had those top 5 picks, but the traditional route. When he didn't pick high, he was no longer a genius.

The truth of his Cubs tenure though is that if Arrietta didn't suddenly gain the body of a greek god when he got to the Cubs, the Cubs are barely a playoff team. There were a few middle of the road veterans who magically became HOF level players under Theo's watch in both places. I guess he was just really good at finding them

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

Some of you guys really love taking the opinions of the extreme and fashioning them as if they represent the majority.

Is Theo deified by some? Sure. But if you have listened to the majority of writers and hosts in this market, his weaknesses and mistakes have been discussed plenty. Hell, when Waddle and Silvy poses the question of what letter grade would you give Theo for his tenure a month back, the fan consensus was a B+. All things considered, that seems more than “objective.”

The thing I’ll always remember about Theo is the man called his shot. In his introductory press conference in 2011, he said he would bring this organization into the modern era, create a model of sustained success, and break the curse. And that’s exactly what he did.

3 straight NLCS appearances, with the one in the middle resulting in a WS win. Cmon...what are we talking about here. The guy got it done.

Again, plenty of mistakes, but Theo is a true talent with a sterling resume, and for all intents and purposes a genuine guy.

I'm all for bashing Theo but the Red Sox won the WS a couple years after Theo left. Hardly a disaster

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Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

Agreed. I forget the particulars but around 2016/2017, there was a stat that like a dozen Or more of the players in the AL/NL LCS series that Theo was responsible for them being on their current team. Between the Cubs and Red Sox.

I agree that he is probably a good guy.

The Cult of Theo has been ridiculous but it has died down with the Cubs slide. It isn't his fault.

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

I know sarcasm is a major tool in your tool box. And I’m with it. But you also like to purposely mischaracterize.

after his successor purged the team of the contracts (requiring them to eat much of that money). They won 69 games the year after he left with some of the worst contracts in baseball weighing them down. I could do the full research but the Dodgers took on guys like Carl Crawford.

They still had the players in the pipeline that Theo drafted using his budgetary advantage.

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

You couldn't listen to years of Rozner and Bernstein repeating the mantra of the plan and think it was anything but a cult

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

I’m not even gonna address Bernstein because he’s just a lunatic.

I remember Barry and Joe O speaking I’ll of certain Theo moves in 2017/2018.

But even if what you say is true about those 2...that’s two guys. My point is the majority of observers recognize that Theo didn’t develop dick in terms of pitching, and he over valued like likes of Schwarber, Almora, Russell, etc.

Daniel Murphy lol...spark when he started, and then was just garbage.


So, Dolphin, what grade overall would you give Theos Cub tenure?

Yea he used the resources he had and the environment to bring both franchises successes not seen in decades..

Agreed.

The last paragraph is non sense hatery

You know what else he said on that first day? He learned a lesson in Boston about paying for past production and that would never happen again. His tenure at both places is pretty analogous, except the loser Cubs only won one WS.

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

A+, unless there is something higher

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

Ok, bruh. We are done here.


Look in your crystal ball and predict how long you think Jed will be at the helm and how high the success he’ll oversee.

I'm hardly the first or only person to recognize the benefit to Theo's career of suspected enhancement abusers.

While we are on the topic of resources, the first world series was largely attributed to the work of his predecessor before the Cult of Theo started to rewrite history

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

My guess is he makes it 5 years on sentimentality but he will oversee a slide back into what we are accustomed to with the Cubs

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

what fucking garbage

https://ontapsportsnet.com/2020/11/16/t ... e-success/

Anybody that's an Espn Insider or subscribed to ESPN+ or whatever the hell its called, post this article here:

https://www.espn.com/mlb/insider/story/ ... ps-chicago

I wanna read it. Thanks. This is in addition to the other one I requested.

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How’s he rank in weekday day games in the non-competitive Theo era?

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Listened to David Samson today on LeBatard podcast. He thinks Theo will go to the Mets with a ownership chunk and then Commissioner.

Yep!!!

I heard that too.

Said it’s an open secret in certain baseball circles that Theo has a long range plan to be commissioner.

Also, I used to skip over that weekly Samson segment on the LeBatard podcasts, but last week’s episode about public pooping and Jamie Foxx fucked up on cocaine trying to fight him was classic stuff.

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Why would a billionaire give him ownership?

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