THEO EPSTEIN

It's a natural push and pull that exists in any sports organization. When you are in a big market and then you win, and you're up against the Yankees, and ratings are what they are and attendance is what it is, no one wants to go backwards; as a business, you don't want to go backwards.

Once you thrust yourself out there in the public domain, it's really hard to retreat, to say no or reclaim that certain part of your life as private.

We knew the 2017-18 offseason would be one of our most challenging. We've known that for a long time.

Sometimes, on the business side, it's important to sort of have something with some sizzle in an offseason. It's the baseball operations department's job to push back against that, just as it's the business side's job to sometimes advance those thoughts.

It stinks to give up a good player. But if you think that way, you'll never make any trades. You have to focus on what you're getting back.

We've made plenty of mistakes. But the ones that we've hit on, we've gotten lucky with some impact guys back, some best-case scenarios as far as how the guys have turned out.

If we can't find the next technological breakthrough, well, maybe we can be better than anyone else with how we treat our players and how we connect with players and the relationships we develop and how we put them in positions to succeed.

There are a lot of ways to make a positive impact on the community without necessarily being a politician.

If I let my brain follow its path unfettered, it would be kinda ugly.

I don't want to be buried in a Red Sox casket.

To win the World Series, you have to be able to do a lot of things well.

I ended up staying 10 years in Boston. It was nine as GM but 10 years there. That seemed about right: long enough to try to make a difference and try to contribute to winning teams and some championships.

The Red Sox hadn't won in 86 years when we took over. We didn't run from that challenge - we embraced it.

The 'Chicago Sun-Times,' I remember, ran a full-page, front-page photo-shop of me walking on water across Lake Michigan, as if by showing up I was going to miraculously fix the team's fortunes. Imagine their disappointment, then, when I announced a long-term rebuilding plan focused on acquiring young players and winning in five years.

I do think we can be honest and upfront that certain organizations haven't gotten the job done. That's the approach we took in Boston. We identified certain things that we hadn't been doing well, that might have gotten in the way of a World Series, and eradicated them.

I tend to solicit opinions from all those around me. I like to hear opinions and the rationale behind it from everybody in the room. Perhaps it's the result of going to law school and using the Socratic method.

I think everyone deserves more than one World Series every 108 years so.

It's always different when a guy gets drafted and developed and comes up in his first organization and makes an impact. There's something special and timeless about it.

If multiple starting pitchers underperform at the same time, it's always going to leave you in a stretch where it's hard to play better than .500 baseball.

Failure happens to everyone in this game. It's not something worth harping on. What is worth focusing on is how you respond to that failure.

It's a human phenomenon that there has to be a reason for everything. There almost never is.

Watching the Dodgers perform at a really high level is a nice reminder to us as to how high the bar is.

Every opportunity to win is sacred. It's sacred to us inside the organization, and it should be sacred to the fans as well. They deserve our best efforts to do what we can to improve the club and put the club in position to succeed in any given season.

You've just got to kind of play the hand you're dealt.

I don't think I'm a chameleon. I can feel where people are coming from, what makes them tick, where they are vulnerable, what makes them feel good about themselves. I get just as much out of it as they do. I love connecting.