Tired of Jorge Soler rumors? Burnt out on Matt Garza trade speculation?
Well, get ready, because now you get to hear about the other endless offseason storyline you’re sick of hearing about.
The Theo Epstein compensation drama is probably coming to an end soon.
According to reports out of both Chicago (Carrie Muskat and Phil Rogers) and Boston (Nick Cafardo and Gordon Edes), Commissioner Bud Selig, who has apparently been devoting an inordinately large amount of time to the decision, will soon render judgment with respect to the compensation fight. The Boston sources say the decision will come “very soon” and/or by the start of Spring Training. The Chicago sources say the decision will come by the end of the week, so I suppose that means tonight, tomorrow, or over the weekend.
We’ll probably never know the finer details of just what happened to turn this into such a mess. We know the two sides were sloppy in how they handled the permission to interview and hire Epstein. We know that the Commissioner’s Office was sloppy in order Epstein to officially join the Cubs, and then telling the sides to “keep working on it.” Everyone probably shares some blame.
Although we’re not going to know just what was said between the sides, we might be able to glean a bit based on the size of the compensation. Considering precedent, fair compensation would be a good (top 15/20) prospect and cash. If that’s the compensation Selig chooses, there’s probably little more to know. If the compensation is more than that (the “significant player” Boston keeps clamoring about, perhaps), then I’m going to suspect there’s a lot more to the story than we know. And we might never know.
But at least we’ll get that compensation piece “soon.”