Epstein: Zambrano Violated Cubs' Trust
(CBS) After completing the Carlos Zambrano trade Thursday, Cubs President of Baseball Operations Theo Epstein met with the media via conference call and spoke candidly about how the former Cubs pitcher had violated the trust of the locker room.
"This was one was really consistent," Epstein said. "Every player I talked to articulated to me that Carlos really violated their trust. When you're talking about physical altercations with players repeatedly and talking about physically walking out on the team, it's very hard to then have that player come back into the clubhouse and be trusted. In order to be a good teammate, there has to be a certain degree of trust and accountability."
Epstein says he usually avoids labeling players based on their reputations, but this was clearly a unique situation.
"The players here felt, and the organization feels like there just wasn't trust there, and it was a risky proposition to see whether that trust could be re-established, " he said.
Epstein said the trade talks with Miami did not start until this week and he was actually ready to bring Zambrano back before the Marlins showed interest.
