We have now reached Jan. 12, almost three months since Theo Epstein decided to leave the Boston Red Sox to become the Chicago Cubs president of baseball operations. Still, we do not know what the Red Sox will receive as compensation for allowing Epstein out of his contract.
The teams were originally given a Nov. 1 deadline, but Bud Selig agreed to extend the deadline until after the Rule 5 Draft, which took place on Dec. 8.
Early in November, Red Sox general manager Ben Cherington noted that it was difficult to agree on terms because the situation has 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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