Mark Armour and Dan Levitt have written a book: In Pursuit of Pennants, which examines how front offices have historically found innovative ways to build winning teams. In support of that, they are counting down the top-25 GMs of all time over at their blog. Since it’s slow season, I’m going to continue linking to the countdown as it’s great stuff we rarely read about in the normal course.
Number 17 on the list was Dan Duquette, who laid the foundation for the 2004 World Series champion Boston Red Sox. But Theo Epstein was on the job when the title happened and he kept the team a winner on through the 2007 championship. Still had his fingerprints on 2013 too, really.
He’s no longer a GM -- even if everyone seems to think he is, the job belongs to Jed Hoyer in Chicago -- but he is currently building the Cubs up into a winner as well. If Mark and Dan do this list a few years from now, he’s probably higher. For now, though, go read their assessment of Theo Epstein, the 16th greatest GM of all time.
