The Boston Red Sox will not resume compensation talks with the Chicago Cubs for Theo Epstein's departure until after the Rule 5 Draft, Epstein said on Thursday. The draft takes place on Dec. 8 in Dallas.
The teams were originally given a Nov. 1 deadline and commissioner Bud Selig said he would intervene if the compensation was not agreed upon at that point. But an extension was granted as the two teams try to settle on proper compensation for allowing Epstein to bolt town.
Red Sox general manager Ben Cherington said two weeks ago the situation is difficult because there's no real precedent.
"Because of that, our position has been we have to look at this particular circumstance," Cherington said. "There was an understanding, again, at the very beginning the Red Sox would get significant compensation if Theo left to go to Chicago. That's been the challenge, agreeing on what significant means.
"But I think again, in Theo's case, if we rewind the clock this was not someone who ownership was looking to push out the door in any way and we were still in a position of having a really good team in 2012. He was under contract, and then we had a manager leaving, we had a manager search going on, so there were a lot of things going on at the time that made him leaving perhaps challenging. I think that's where our ownership feels we need to be compensated for that.''
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