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" 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. "

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" 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. "

Theo Epstein

Make A Difference

Long

Enough

" 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. "

" If you reach a point where your entire farm system is in the big leagues, you've traded a couple guys for players who are now in the big leagues, you know what you do? You start over in your farm system, and you keep developing the talented players you have. "

" You just make the right baseball decision. You don't necessarily worry about somebody's feelings or anything like that. You make the right baseball decision for the team first and then for the player's development as importantly. "

" I tend to solicit opinions from all those around me. I like to hear opinions and the rationale behind it from everybody in the room. Perhaps it's the result of going to law school and using the Socratic method. "

Theo Epstein

Result

School

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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 'Chicago Sun-Times,' I remember, ran a full-page, front-page photo-shop of me walking on water across Lake Michigan, as if by showing up I was going to miraculously fix the team's fortunes. Imagine their disappointment, then, when I announced a long-term rebuilding plan focused on acquiring young players and winning in five years. "

" It's a human phenomenon that there has to be a reason for everything. There almost never is. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" Failure is inherent in the game. So if you don't respond well to adversity, you're probably not going to have a long career. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" You reach a point where you're trying to survive. You're just trying to put the ball in play. You're not yourself. You're searching for your identity as a hitter on a nightly basis. That's just really hard. And it is not atypical at all for players to need to change their environment in order to rediscover who they are. "

" If you want to continue to be good and perform at a high level and be deep in all areas, you still have to hit on some undervalued players, too. You can't just go out and sign marquee free agents or trade for players when they're at the peak of their value. That's not a formula for long-term success. "

" It's hypocritical to say when things are going well, 'Interview me. Ask me how great I am. Ask me about family and personal life.' At some point later, when someone wants information and you want to draw the line, how do you do that? "

Theo Epstein

Life

You

" I don't think I'm a chameleon. I can feel where people are coming from, what makes them tick, where they are vulnerable, what makes them feel good about themselves. I get just as much out of it as they do. I love connecting. "

" It stinks to give up a good player. But if you think that way, you'll never make any trades. You have to focus on what you're getting back. "

" I used to follow people home. I just like being anonymous so much that I would follow people home because they didn't know who I was, and I could watch them. I know how that sounds. I could not exist but observe. "

Theo Epstein

Watch

" 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. "

" There are a lot of ways to make a positive impact on the community without necessarily being a politician. "

" 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?' "

Theo Epstein

Privacy

Say

" Baseball is a game based on adversity. It's a game that's going to test you repeatedly. It's going to find your weaknesses and vulnerabilities and force you to adjust. That adversity, in the big picture, is a really good thing because it shows you where your weaknesses are. It gives you the opportunity to improve. "

" 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. "

" There are certainly times when baseball is much more than bread and circus, times when baseball resonates deeply and meaningfully with many, many people, and times when a game that is built around overcoming failure can teach us all a few important lessons. "

" If I let my brain follow its path unfettered, it would be kinda ugly. "