I want to thank everyone who has ever put on a Cubs uniform and anyone who has ever rooted for the Cubs.
— Theo Epstein
Every opportunity to win is sacred. It's sacred to us inside the organization, and it should be sacred to the fans as well. They deserve our best efforts to do what we can to improve the club and put the club in position to succeed in any given season.
Tolerance is important, especially in a democracy. The ability to have honest conversations, even if you come from a different place, a difference perspective, is fundamentally important.
When people do things they weren't even sure they were capable of, I think it comes back to connection. Connection with teammates. Connection with organization. Feeling like they belong in the environment. I think it's a human need - the need to feel connected.
We've made plenty of mistakes. But the ones that we've hit on, we've gotten lucky with some impact guys back, some best-case scenarios as far as how the guys have turned out.
You've just got to kind of play the hand you're dealt.
I still wake up thinking about draft choices we should have made that would have impacted the franchise for a long time, but I don't wake up thinking about one individual player move.
This game will make you cry more often than not.
Bostonians vs. Chicagoans, they have different sensibilities, and I can only say this because I consider myself a Bostonian. You know, the Puritanical roots in Boston - the 'sky is falling' mentality a little bit. We could be on a great run, and we'd lose one game, and everyone's panicking.
It took me coming to the Midwest to realize I was the jerk. People are so nice here. They're so grounded.
There has to be active, hands-on management in concert with the manager to lead the organization and make sure that the standards that we set for the organization as a whole are being lived up to.
There's nothing I hate more than someone who speaks in the draft room with absolute conviction, but they have nothing to back it up.
If you're trying to avoid one move that you don't think is going to work out, don't then settle for a different move that maybe doesn't check all the boxes. Be true to the philosophy and understand the bigger picture. There's always another day to fight.
The leadoff-hitter thing, I think, it's always nice to have an established leadoff hitter and to have someone who can really get on base and set the tone.
Baseball is better with tradition, with history. Baseball is better with fans who care.
I don't want to be buried in a Red Sox casket.
When people you don't know say nice things about you, if you allow yourself, even subconsciously, to attach a shred of meaning to it, when the opposite happens, when people you don't know say bad things about you, you can't attach that same meaning.
If we think a playoff spot's not in the cards, there will be no concern for appearances or cosmetics whatsoever. We'll continue to address our future and trade off some pieces that would keep us respectable.
I do think we can be honest and upfront that certain organizations haven't gotten the job done. That's the approach we took in Boston. We identified certain things that we hadn't been doing well, that might have gotten in the way of a World Series, and eradicated them.
I believe in the First Amendment. But I also believe we should be mindful of how other people feel.
If we can't find the next technological breakthrough, well, maybe we can be better than anyone else with how we treat our players and how we connect with players and the relationships we develop and how we put them in positions to succeed.
It's best not to think about winning or losing trades anyway, because the best ones work out for both teams. But, as a rule, if you're the team that's selling - if you're out of it, and you're trading with a team that's in it - you usually have the pick of just about their whole farm system, with a few exclusions.
There's a cumulative effort within the course of a game, a series, and a season, too, where you see so many pitches and have so many at-bats that you can wear down an opponent. Once you develop that reputation as a club, year after year, players come in, and they tend to fit in with that profile.
We want to try and transform the Red Sox into a team like the Braves or the Yankees, where you can almost count on the postseason every year.
The only time I think about my contract is when I'm asked about it by the media.
Failure happens to everyone in this game. It's not something worth harping on. What is worth focusing on is how you respond to that failure.
I don't know if I could go to another run-of-the-mill baseball department and work because it would probably feel like work. In Boston and Chicago, it doesn't feel like work. It feels like a privilege.
As I sat back and imagined what my transition from the Red Sox might be, I thought it would smell more like champagne than beer, I guess you would say.
I chose my classes based on which professors did not take attendance, and then I traded Padres tickets for notes from class. I wasn't the student of the month.
Sometimes, on the business side, it's important to sort of have something with some sizzle in an offseason. It's the baseball operations department's job to push back against that, just as it's the business side's job to sometimes advance those thoughts.
The goals is to create a really high 'floor' for this organization, where the 'off' years are years where you might win in the high-80s and sneak a division or a wild card or win 90 games and get in and find a way to win in October. And the great years, you win 103 and win the whole thing.
I like to have some privacy, especially where my family is concerned, so when I'm recognized, I'll usually say something like 'I get that all the time' or 'Theo Epstein? Who's that?'
I'm not going to try to deny that I'm a Red Sox fan. I grew up a Red Sox fan, had a great decade here that I really enjoyed, and that will always be a part of me.
Communication is different in the clubhouse than it is in a boardroom. The heartbeat that exists in the clubhouse, you don't find that same type of heartbeat in the front office.
When we build that foundation for sustained success, and it ultimately results in a World Series, it's going to be more than just a World Series.
There are a lot of ways to make a positive impact on the community without necessarily being a politician.
We don't live in isolation. Most people don't like working in isolation - some do, but they typically don't end up playing Major League Baseball.
I don't think facing one of your own active pitchers would be a good idea, unless I got super lucky and hit a ball through the middle or something. That would not be good. I'd pull every muscle in my body.
I love being in a city that's playing October baseball, where you can just feel everyone captivated by the ball club, everyone walking around tired from staying up late, prioritizing baseball above all else. It's a great phenomenon.
Having a relentless lineup full of professional hitters works on so many levels. It works in terms of pure baseball reasons: if you get on base, you're going to score runs.
It's always different when a guy gets drafted and developed and comes up in his first organization and makes an impact. There's something special and timeless about it.
I ended up staying 10 years in Boston. It was nine as GM but 10 years there. That seemed about right: long enough to try to make a difference and try to contribute to winning teams and some championships.
You can't go through life thinking about what could go wrong.
Even over time, with a stable coaching staff and one manager who is fantastic and been in place for a long time, you can't ever defer and stay out of the clubhouse because you don't want to get in the way.
The Cubs - with their passionate fans, dedicated ownership, tradition, and World Series drought - represented the ultimate new challenge and the one team I could imagine working for after such a fulfilling Red Sox experience.
If multiple starting pitchers underperform at the same time, it's always going to leave you in a stretch where it's hard to play better than .500 baseball.
It's a natural push and pull that exists in any sports organization. When you are in a big market and then you win, and you're up against the Yankees, and ratings are what they are and attendance is what it is, no one wants to go backwards; as a business, you don't want to go backwards.
Scouting and player development is the key to year-in and year-out success, not the occasional lucky hit. There are no definitive answers in this game, no shortcuts. When you think you've got it all figured out, you can get humbled very quickly.
The Red Sox hadn't won in 86 years when we took over. We didn't run from that challenge - we embraced it.
I think people want the Cubs to succeed, and by extension, they want people associated with the Cubs to succeed.
