Quotes from Theo Epstein

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 chose my classes based on which professors did not take attendance, and then I traded Padres tickets for notes from class. I wasn't the student of the month.

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.

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.

It's best not to think about winning or losing trades anyway, because the best ones work out for both teams. But, as a rule, if you're the team that's selling - if you're out of it, and you're trading with a team that's in it - you usually have the pick of just about their whole farm system, with a few exclusions.

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.

We want to try and transform the Red Sox into a team like the Braves or the Yankees, where you can almost count on the postseason every year.

There's a cumulative effort within the course of a game, a series, and a season, too, where you see so many pitches and have so many at-bats that you can wear down an opponent. Once you develop that reputation as a club, year after year, players come in, and they tend to fit in with that profile.

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.

We don't live in isolation. Most people don't like working in isolation - some do, but they typically don't end up playing Major League Baseball.

Bostonians vs. Chicagoans, they have different sensibilities, and I can only say this because I consider myself a Bostonian. You know, the Puritanical roots in Boston - the 'sky is falling' mentality a little bit. We could be on a great run, and we'd lose one game, and everyone's panicking.

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.

Typically, it takes young players years to adjust to life in the big leagues and to start performing up to their capabilities. Most of the blame for this rests on these ridiculous old baseball norms that say young players are to be seen and not heard.

Players that tend to respond to adversity the right way and triumph in the end are players with strong character. If you have enough guys like that in the clubhouse, you have an edge on the other team.

You don't want to make a living or habit out of trying to solve your problems with high-price pitching free agents because over the long run, there's so much risk involved that you really can hamstring your organization.

It took me coming to the Midwest to realize I was the jerk. People are so nice here. They're so grounded.

I believe in the First Amendment. But I also believe we should be mindful of how other people feel.

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.

I don't want to be buried in a Red Sox casket.

I'm not going to try to deny that I'm a Red Sox fan. I grew up a Red Sox fan, had a great decade here that I really enjoyed, and that will always be a part of me.

Be intentional about the spaces you create but not at the cost of compromising other elements.

There's nothing I hate more than someone who speaks in the draft room with absolute conviction, but they have nothing to back it up.

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.