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Chicago Cubs: Theo Epstein’s five best moves as President

By Vincent Parise

Nov 2, 2016; Cleveland, OH, USA; Chicago Cubs president Theo Epstein holds the commissioner's trophy after game seven of the 2016 World Series against the Cleveland Indians at Progressive Field. Mandatory Credit: David J. Phillip/Pool Photo via USA TODAY Sports
Nov 2, 2016; Cleveland, OH, USA; Chicago Cubs president Theo Epstein holds the commissioner's trophy after game seven of the 2016 World Series against the Cleveland Indians at Progressive Field. Mandatory Credit: David J. Phillip/Pool Photo via USA TODAY Sports /
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Chicago Cubs Kyle Hendricks
(Photo by Nuccio DiNuzzo/Getty Images) /

Demptster for Hendricks

Sometimes, trading popular players is hard for a general manager. Ryan Dempster was a pretty good player for the Chicago Cubs but his time there wasn’t successful for the team as a whole. Theo Epstein knew that rebuilding this team would be extremely painful to watch. He traded Ryan Dempster to the Texas Rangers in exchange for Kyle Hendricks and Christian Villanueva in 2012. Hendricks is now one of the best pitcher in all of baseball and Dempster was out of  the league a year later.

Hendricks was a fantastic pitcher for the Cubs en route to the 2016 World Series and he wasn’t even one of the two aces on the staff. Now he is a legit Opening Day ace which shows how impressive this trade is. To pick out a guy like that and trade a popular player for him shows that Theo knows what he was doing.

The Cubs haven’t been particularly good at developing pitching during the Theo Epstein era and that will always be one of his faults. With that said, despite not being the ones who drafted him, the Cubs did have a hand in developing him. It did take around two years for him to be in the big leagues full time and the wait paid off for them. He has two top-ten Cy Young Award finishes including a third place finish in 2016.

Hot. Five Chicago Cubs superstars to trade this offseason. light

Obviosly, these five moves were the biggest keys to the Cubs finally wining the World Series. There are more than just the five but these stick out as the most important. The Cubs are worse without Theo but the impact he made on the city and organization are going to last forever. They no longer have the stink of being the lovable losers and it is all thanks to Theo Epstein.

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