Column: Theo Epstein’s tree is growing as baseball looks for creative approaches in front offices
When former Chicago Cubs employee Jeff Greenberg left the Blackhawks on Thursday to become general manager of the Detroit Tigers, he became the 10th member of the Theo Epstein executive tree to be hired as a GM or president of baseball operations.
Six remain in top front-office roles, including three who could see their teams playing in the 2023 postseason — Cubs President Jed Hoyer, Seattle Mariners President Jerry Dipoto and Arizona Diamondbacks GM Mike Hazen.
It might not be quite as impressive as the Bill Walsh coaching tree in football, but Epstein is only 49, and some of his former proteges are still climbing the ladder in their respective organizations.
Epstein became the youngest GM in baseball in 2002 when he took over the Boston Red Sox. He won a World Series in 2004, breaking an 86-year drought, and another in 2007 before taking over as Cubs president in 2011 and winning a third ring in 2016.
Tigers President Scott Harris, whom Epstein hired as director of baseball operations in 2012 and became assistant GM in 2018, brought Greenberg over from the Hawks after one year in the NHL to help the Tigers turn the corner in their rebuild.
Harris recently told me Epstein taught him that building the right culture in an organization meant more than finding players who fit a statistical mold. Role players are just as important in clubhouse chemistry.
“Theo was a master at finding value in the margins,” Harris said. “Some of that value was measurable and some was not. He found a way to find the right collection of personalities that would help a team overcome a 108-year curse or the curse in Boston. That doesn’t happen all in measurables. You have to be able to evaluate intangible qualities to build the right mix of personalities.”
Harris believes Greenberg is the right man to find those types of players. Switching sports is a challenge for anyone, but Greenberg spent 11 years with the Cubs before leaving for the Hawks job last year.
“I think, from a competitive standpoint, we’re all trying to find the best way to lead to wins,” Tigers manager A.J. Hinch told MLB.com. “Someone who’s seen it from multiple angles in multiple sports, that has to be valuable in the process.”
When Epstein left the Cubs in 2020, he said he regretted that too many teams had elected to go the rebuild route to emulate their success, “making it the default mechanism” for trying to succeed.
“That’s not something I’m particularly proud of,” he said. “I think what we did was right for us.”
But many of his former employees were hired to do just that.
Hoyer stepped out of Epstein’s shadow in 2021 and engineered a massive sell-off of stars to try to build a farm system that could become part of “the next great Cubs team.” Some of those prospects, including Pete Crow-Armstrong and Alexander Canario, are part of a team trying to win a wild-card spot and put the Cubs in the postseason for the first time since 2020.
Dipoto, a former player, became a scout for the Red Sox in 2003. He has worked in Seattle since 2015, and his rebuild has been defined as a “reimagining.” The Mariners are seeking their first World Series appearance and in a three-way battle for the American League West title with the Houston Astros and Texas Rangers.
Hazen’s rebuild in Arizona finds the young, athletic Diamondbacks in second in the NL wild-card chase entering the weekend. The White Sox hired his assistant GM, Josh Barfield, on Friday to help new GM Chris Getz turn things around on the South Side.
Pittsburgh Pirates GM Ben Cherington, who replaced Epstein in Boston in 2011 and won a World Series title in 2013, has yet to see his rebuild blossom. But they could be a year away from turning the corner.
Four former top executives who worked under Epstein were New York Mets GMs Jared Porter and Zack Scott, Diamondbacks and San Diego Padres GM Josh Byrnes and the Red Sox’s Brian O’Halloran, a GM who last week was named executive vice president of baseball operations.
Epstein lives in Connecticut and works as a consultant for Commissioner Rob Manfred, guiding the new rule changes into place in 2023, including the pitch clock.
Epstein’s baseball legacy is sealed and his philosophy on how to build a team continues to flourish through his tree of MLB executives. Harris said the Tigers are trying to build a culture “and inspire our players to become obsessed with getting better.” Inspiration was something Epstein excelled at as an executive.
“I learned that from Theo,” Harris said. “He was so creative when it came to finding ways to make individuals and a team better. I got a front-row seat for seven years with him in Chicago.”
The baseball world is changing by the year, and the Epstein tree figures to grow bigger.
