Chicago Cubs: Theo Epstein should be next MLB commissioner

The Chicago Cubs have a great president in Theo Epstein, but he would make a great commissioner for Major League Baseball.

The Chicago Cubs have done a lot of boneheaded things since winning the World Series in 2016. That doesn’t mean that Theo Epstein isn’t probably the greatest mind in the game today and in consideration for one of the best baseball operations managers in the history of the sport. They were a pretty bad organization before he showed up with his crew and now the Cubs are back to being one of the good franchises in the game of baseball. Theo deserves a lot of credit for that.

He ended an 86 year World Series drought for the Boston Red Sox in 2004 and a 108-year drought for the Chicago Cubs in 2016. That is a combined 196 years without a World Series title for the two franchises and Theo built championship rosters for each of them. He took on the two biggest droughts in the sport with two of the five most prominent franchises and ended them.

He has always said he wants to continue taking on bigger and more impressive challenges as his time goes on and there might not be a bigger one left in the game of baseball as far as baseball operations for an individual team. He ended two droughts in markets with incredible pressure on their teams so going somewhere like San Diego or Oakland would probably be taking on a challenge we all think he could deal with.

Of course, if he were to go be a general manager in another sport for a bad franchise that has a lot of pressure on them, that might be a task worth Theo’s time. The Ottawa Senators in the NHL or the Cleveland Browns of the NFL are on that level of pathetic in markets that are starving for a winner. With that said, Theo probably wants to remain in the game of baseball.

If he wants a new challenge, the most rewarding and challenging would be for him to go assume the role of the next commissioner of baseball. Nobody knows if that is something he can see himself doing but Rob Manfred is doing a lousy job. If Theo can be 90 percent as successful as a commissioner as he was a general manager or president of baseball operations, the MLB would be in amazing hands. That would be the ultimate challenge for a guy like that. He has little left to prove on the management side of things.

Rob Manfred has been awful as of late. He really messed up the Houston Astros cheating scandal and now he looks terrible in the negotiations trying to bring baseball back following the COVID-19 pandemic. Nobody knows if he would ever get fired but if something did happen, Theo would be great for the game.

If we wanted a commissioner to come in and save baseball, Mr. Epstein has shown that he might have the tools to do so. He is an eloquent speaker and he knows how to get the most out of people working for him. He seems like the kind of guy that could reach the younger crowd with the game of baseball which is also really important in terms of growing this great game. His time with the Cubs has been nice but it is time for him to save baseball. There might not be a bigger challenge for him if he truly wants to keep completing harder challenges.