McAdam: Theo Epstein steps away -- again

The nine-year itch has struck Theo Epstein again.

After nine seasons as general manager of the Red Sox, Epstein determined that it was time to move on, despite having a year remaining on his contract.

Tuesday, following nine seasons as the Chicago Cubs' president of baseball operations and with a year left on his deal, Epstein resigned.

This time, the circumstances are different. While 2011 saw Epstein eager to take on a new challenge by taking over the Cubs, he has no such plan in mind this time. According to a baseball source, it's Epstein's intent to take 2021 off and re-assess where things stand in a year's time.

That should end the immediate speculation that Epstein could be headed to either the New York Mets or Philadelphia Phillies, both of which happen to have vacancies for the top job in their baseball operations departments.

Bringing in Epstein to oversee the Mets would have been another highly popular move for new owner Steve Cohen. The Mets, eager to shed their status as second-class New York citizens, overshadowed by the more established baseball brand in the Bronx, would suddenly have an owner willing to spend dollar-for-dollar with the Steinbrenner family, and a baseball executive who has bested the Yankees before.

The presence of recently re-installed team president Sandy Alderson, however, is an impediment to such a move. Epstein has nothing against Alderson, but wouldn't want to have to answer to anyone except a team owner. The Phillies don't have an Alderson-type figure -- Andy MacPhail has one foot out the door already -- but the allure of that franchise just isn't the same.



Moreover, this is less about title for Epstein and more about timing. He has privately expressed a desire to to spend more time with his two sons, Jack and Andrew, before they fully grow up and out of the house, and has decided that now would be a good time to hit "pause'' on his baseball career.

Though the last few years of his tenure with the Cubs didn't yield the second championship that he experienced with the Red Sox, Epstein has little left to prove as a general manager/president of baseball operations.

Twice, he ended historic championship droughts with iconic franchises. Some 23 months after he became the youngest GM in MLB history, the Red Sox won their first title in 86 years. Three years after that, he won another, and one year later, came up a couple runs short of a third pennant in a Game 7 ALCS loss to the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.

In his nine years in Boston , Epstein won two World Series, a division title and qualified for the postseason six times.

As if that hadn't been enough accomplishments, Epstein then trained his makeover skills on the Cubs — who had finished in last place in each of the previous two seasons before his arrival. Epstein exhibited patience in orchestrating a rebuild that began slowly, as the pennant-starved Cubs averaged 95 losses in his first three seasons.

But in 2015, the Cubs reached the playoffs for only the seventh time in the previous 70 years, and the next year, the Cubs held off Terry Francona's Cleveland Indians in an epic seven-game World Series, delivering the first championship to the franchise in more than a century.

In 2017, the Cubs returned to the NLCS before losing in five games to the Dodgers. Still, three straight trips to the LCS represented a high-water mark for a team that had become synonymous with losing.

But while some envisioned the team going on some dynastic run, postseason success has proved elusive since 2017. The Cubs have qualified for the playoffs twice in the last three years, but haven't won so much as a single postseason game.

In some ways, the second-half of Epstein's tenure in Chicago mirrored the end of his time with the Red Sox. There, as here, developing homegrown starting pitching proved elusive and some expensive free agent mistakes have become burdensome.

(If it's any consolation for Epstein, he has steadfastly avoided any of the power struggles that marked the end of his time in Boston. Owner Tom Ricketts has largely stayed out of Epstein's way in Chicago and he has not found himself wrestling with others the way he did with former Sox president Larry Lucchino).

The Cubs now find themselves at something of a developmental crossroads, with half the roster full of star players on soon-to-be-expiring contracts --  Javier Baez, Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo -- and a minor league system, thinned out to fuel the team's futile search for a second title to match the first. Epstein's contract itself was set to run out after next year and the general consensus was that he wouldn't remain past then -- either by his own choice or that of Ricketts.

Leaving now gives his longtime aide-de-camp, Jed Hoyer, a chance to turn things around and establish himself without Epstein's presence.

What's next -- and where -- is uncertain. He is said to have an interest in becoming team president with full authority over a franchise, perhaps with an ownership stake. It's probably not a stretch to envision him trying to put together an ownership group to buy a team, then install himself as the team's chief executive.

Could a return to the Red Sox be in the offing? That seems a longshot. Epstein's lifelong friend, Sam Kennedy, is the team's president and CEO, and even if John Henry had designs on selling sometime in the near future -- he does not have a logical landing spot within the organization.

A more likely scenario might include taking a year (or two) to travel, decompress and spend time with his family before returning as the point man for a group looking for an expansion franchise.

Having his hand in building a team from the ground up would satisfy his thirst for a new challenge and allow him to be his own boss.

If, on the other hand, Epstein determines that he is done with baseball and wishes to change fields -- political office? -- his remarkable career has already assured him of enshrinement in Cooperstown in recognition of doing the impossible -- twice.