Theo Epstein cemented his Hall of Fame case Wednesday night when the Cubs won the World Series. Theo presided over breaking two of the three longest championship droughts in baseball history. Epstein approached this in two very different ways.
Under the Red Sox, the new ownership group required winning right away. The purchase of the team was highly leveraged, so they needed high cash flows to service that debt. That meant fielding a competitive team every year so they could sell out the stadium and enjoy maximum revenue from other sources. Epstein made some brilliant trades before and during the 2004 season, turning an already good team into a World Champion.
That wasn’t how Epstein wanted to build a team, however. After the World Series win and another successful season in 2005, Epstein wanted to take a step back and develop the team with a long-term model of success. He wanted the team to be the Braves of the 1990s, constantly letting free agents go as new talent arrived from the minors. The Red Sox ownership felt they needed to constantly rejigger the team to win now, so Epstein resigned. He would come back after a winter off, but he never truly got to build the team he wanted to build.
The Cubs were different. The new ownership there was on board with the long-term model. A few terrible years allowed Chicago to build the minor league system with great draft picks. There was improvement, the Cubs going from 61 wins in 2012 to 73 wins in 2014. The the big jump to 97 wins and 103 wins and a World Championship.
The Cubs offense is young. It is build around players who get on base, hit for power, and play great defense. It is a group of players with multiple weapons that have not yet reached their prime. The pitching is a bit old, but their one young starter led the league in ERA. The offense will be great and cost effective for a while, so the Cubs front office can concentrate on building a pitching staff now. As the offense ages and gets more expensive, the team will offset that with a younger and less expensive pitching staff.
The Cubs should not be a flash in the pan like the 2007 Rockies or the 2014-2015 Royals. This was not a team built to win once, this is a team built to win for years. It’s the Braves and Yankees of the 1990s. Boston could have had this, a killer team capable of winning the World Series every year at low cost. They might have avoided the ups and downs of the last few seasons. Chicago listened to Epstein, and they are poised to become a dynasty.
from baseballmusings.com http://ift.tt/2f19FWq
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