John Middleton Must Do Everything He Can to Bring Theo Epstein to the Phillies

Very few figures in sports, and in the world for that matter, have an aura like Theo Epstein. At the age of 28 he became the youngest general manager in MLB history of the Boston Red Sox. Within a couple of years he built a team capable of overcoming a 3-0 deficit in the American League Championship Series and broke the 86 year-old Curse of the Bambino. For good measure he oversaw the Sox win it all again in 2007.

How do you follow up breaking a curse as famous as the Bambino? By becoming the President of the franchise with the biggest curse in sports history. By the time Theo took over the Cubs they had gone over a century since their last World Series win and nearly 7 decades since their last NL pennant. He preached to Chicago that he had a plan and it was going to take time. And it worked. Unlike most 5 year plans, Epstein and his right-hand-man Jed Hoyer’s 5 year plan worked as they built the Cubs from the bottom to the top of the baseball world in 2016.

The Red Sox and the Cubs being cursed from winning a World Series were two huge parts of baseball lore for decades and decades. But Theo seemingly made Hell freeze over and pigs fly within just a few years of taking over those programs. He’s so good at what he does that the idea of him running for office doesn’t sound ludicrous at all.

While not being at the same place for a decade usually means they’re unsuccessful, for Theo it means he knows when to leave and pursuit a new challenge. This week he stepped down as President of the Cubs with one year left on his contract. He intends to take a season off before returning back the frontlines of the front office. And Phillies owner John Middleton has to do everything he can to bring Theo to Philadelphia.

While the Phillies aren’t as cursed as the Red Sox and Cubs were having won a World Series in 1980 and 2008, they still have their own current demons to fight: The Curse of Matt Klentak and Andy MacPhail. Middleton brought those two in as President and General Manager of the Phillies with the hopes that both will bring the team back to the same prominence they had in the late 2000s. Instead the two have been embarrassingly incompetent at their jobs and can’t even build a team good enough to get over .500.

Even with a player like Bryce Harper locked in for the next decade, the future of the Phillies looks bleak after remarkedly missing the 8-team playoff in 2020. The bullpen is a disaster, JT Realmuto is a free agent, and the rest of the NL East is trending upwards. It looks like another half-decade of discontent for the Phil….unless they get Theo.

While Epstein did say he wants to take next season off, let’s not forget that Darryl Morey said the same thing before becoming President of the 76ers. As the Million Dollar Man Ted DiBiase once said: Everybody’s got a price.

Middleton not only needs to offer Theo the job as President or General Manager of the Phils, he’s gotta offer him EVERYTHING he can. All the money, all the power, even a stake in ownership. Whatever it takes to compel Epstein to come to Philadelphia whether that’s this season or next season.

From the looks of it the two other teams that look to be in play for him are the Los Angeles Angels and the New York Mets. The Angels have been trying and failing to build a competitive team around the player of his generation, Mike Trout. If Epstein can’t build a winner with Trout, no one can. And the Mets have a new owner in Steve Cohen, a self-made billionaire who actually wants to win and has plenty of beautiful money to lure Epstein to Queens. Too often in recent years the Phillies and Mets have been cartoon Spiderman pointing at one another as they’ve struggled with dysfunction and underachieving. But now the Mets have one-upped the Phils with a rich owner with a high demand of winning.

So Middleton, open your wallet and offer everything but the kitchen sink to get the one-and-only Theo Epstein into Philadelphia. With his arrival hope will be huge at Citizens Bank Park and visions of a third World Series trophy in the near future are rightly justified.