Quotes from Theo Epstein

I don't think facing one of your own active pitchers would be a good idea, unless I got super lucky and hit a ball through the middle or something. That would not be good. I'd pull every muscle in my body.

When I was writing or competing in individual sports, it felt unfulfilling and lonely. When I was able to find a group of people I believed in and liked, that all worked in pursuit of a common goal, it felt incredibly rewarding.

Failure happens to everyone in this game. It's not something worth harping on. What is worth focusing on is how you respond to that failure.

I work for the Chicago Cubs, a team with a following so loyal and adoring and a history so forlorn that we were known nationwide as the Loveable Losers.

Scouting and player development is the key to year-in and year-out success, not the occasional lucky hit. There are no definitive answers in this game, no shortcuts. When you think you've got it all figured out, you can get humbled very quickly.

The Red Sox hadn't won in 86 years when we took over. We didn't run from that challenge - we embraced it.

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.

Once you thrust yourself out there in the public domain, it's really hard to retreat, to say no or reclaim that certain part of your life as private.

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?'

Communication is different in the clubhouse than it is in a boardroom. The heartbeat that exists in the clubhouse, you don't find that same type of heartbeat in the front office.

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.

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.

Tolerance is important, especially in a democracy. The ability to have honest conversations, even if you come from a different place, a difference perspective, is fundamentally important.

The Cubs - with their passionate fans, dedicated ownership, tradition, and World Series drought - represented the ultimate new challenge and the one team I could imagine working for after such a fulfilling Red Sox experience.

I think everyone deserves more than one World Series every 108 years so.

To win the World Series, you have to be able to do a lot of things well.

When we build that foundation for sustained success, and it ultimately results in a World Series, it's going to be more than just a World Series.

The Cubs, we built one of best farm systems - I think for a while there, it was the best farm system in baseball. And that was great. It got a lot of attention. But we didn't want the credit for the farm system. What we wanted was to see if we could do the tricky part, which was turn a lauded farm system into a World Series champion.

The fact that guys adjusted really quickly to the big leagues, developed really quickly, faced adversity under the brightest spotlights, played great baseball, overcame so much, overcame centuries worth of issues and won a World Series, I guess it doesn't necessarily mean we're still not just prone to the laws of nature and reality and baseball.

I do think we can be honest and upfront that certain organizations haven't gotten the job done. That's the approach we took in Boston. We identified certain things that we hadn't been doing well, that might have gotten in the way of a World Series, and eradicated them.

The 2011 Cubs were the oldest team in the division, the most expensive team in the division, and the worst team in the division. And we really needed to start over.

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.

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.

I still wake up thinking about draft choices we should have made that would have impacted the franchise for a long time, but I don't wake up thinking about one individual player move.