How Epstein & Company built the best team in baseball.
By Kyle Mann
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The Chicago Cubs hadn’t won a World Series in 103 years when new Cubs owner Tom Ricketts struck a deal in 2011 to hire Red Sox wunderkind Theo Epstein as team president. Epstein brought with him Jed Hoyer (his sidekick on the Sox) as his general manager, and now, with Chicago’s championship drought standing at 107 years, its end has never appeared closer.
The Cubs’ new-look management team deserves all the credit in the world, with Ricketts shelling out the money, Epstein and Hoyer making the decisions, and Manager of the Year Joe Maddon putting it all together on the field. Four years into the rebuilding, however, nobody would have expected things to have gone exactly according to plan.
Epstein brought with him the legend of having resurrected the Red Sox after an 86-year drought, so Cub fans had to trust the long-term plans of Epstein. He vowed to rebuild from within, establishing a talented farm system with which to build the team from the ground up.
Slow, unsuccessful seasons were imminent, but with Epstein, Cub fans could finally believe it’s always darkest before dawn.
Then, the unthinkable happened: It worked. Perfectly.
The Cubs drafted Kris Bryant, Kyle Schwarber, and Javier Baez, traded for top prospects Addison Russell and Anthony Rizzo, and signed Cuban free agent Jorge Soler. Just as Epstein had intended, in a matter of years he had assembled one of the top farm systems in the MLB.
When the prospects began to hit the big leagues, Cubs fans’ dreams became a reality as each one has either lived up to or flashed glimpses of their superstar potential. The first step of the process had been accomplished.
Once again, it was time for the front office to move; and move it has. Epstein hired Maddon in the 2014-15 off-season, and a megadeal for free-agent pitcher Jon Lester signaled to the players, fans, and league in general that it was go-time. Jake Arrieta proved to be highway robbery as a trade acquisition, and the Cubs in 2015 rode their momentum to the NLCS, an overachievement by all projections.
People knew 2015 would be the season to compete, but not like that. Regardless, the team had shortcomings remaining to address. Now — in the 2015-16 off-season — well, there are no words.
If the 2014-15 off-season was a whisper that the Cubs were going for it, the 2015-16 edition is a public-service announcement they are here to take it.
Starlin Castro was traded for pitching and replaced with Ben Zobrist for $56 million. The Cubs signed John Lackey away from archrival Cardinals. Most boisterously, however, they also stole Gold Glove superstar outfielder Jason Heyward from the Cards for $185 million. Chicago now has two reliable contact hitters at the top of the order, as well as vastly improved defense, two main areas of need.
And the Cubs aren’t done. With a loaded lineup, and a rotation featuring Arrieta, Lester, and Lackey, the Cubs have a litany of trade pieces to make a run at Indian starter Carlos Carrasco, rumored to be a trade target since July. The Indians love Soler, and Carrasco would give the Cubs another pitcher much closer to Arrieta than Lackey.
Historians will look back on Epstein’s regime with the Cubs as perhaps the single most efficient and successful rebuilding in modern professional sports, finally coming to a head in the winter of 2015. But in a sports world in which players (rightfully) receive a lot of the attention, even the casual fan needs to recognize the wizardry performed in the Chicago front office.
