Schuster: Time Starts Now For Epstein And Co
By David Schuster-
(WSCR) Theo Epstein was certainly right about one thing Friday morning when he stated that the Cubs lead all of baseball in recent press conferences.
When I asked him what's next, he basically told me what isn't next but obviously, he has some priorities.
"Building the 2012 team," Epstein said. "So far, there has been a lot of talk, but there hasn't been a ton of action. I honestly hope we don't have further press conferences for a while and can just go about our business of building and re-building the roster. We'll be very busy over the next three weeks and be ready to further our talks with teams once we get to Dallas (for the Winter Meetings)."
Epstein also broached the situation with Mike Maddux, who withdrew his name from consideration earlier in the week.
"In the end, it probably wasn't the right fit or the right timing, but he's going to be an outstanding manager some day," Epstein said. "He's already a weapon as a pitching coach, and when the situation is right, he'll get another chance.
And Epstein took issue with critics of new manager Dale Sveum, who some say his lack of experience will hurt him.
"I've seen it speculated that Dale wont be a strong manager because this is his first go around," Epstein said. "I want to correct that right off the bat. We hired him to be a strong Manager. You don't have to have 10 years of experience as a big league manager to be strong. I have no doubt that he will be successful."
And with that, Epstein was gone off to do what he was brought here to do, namely rebuild an organization that has gone winless now for over a century.
