BOSTON -- The Boston Red Sox and Chicago Cubs have been given another week to determine compensation for Theo Epstein's departure from Boston to Chicago, Red Sox general manager Ben Cherington said Wednesday.
"We're going to have a little more time to work it out,'' Cherington said. "I'm not sure exactly how much, at least a week, I would guess. I think this is just a practical decision, with everything going on, Theo in Chicago, for us here with a managerial search and whatnot, just haven't had a lot of time to spend on it. So we got a little more time and hopefully will have a little more time to talk about it.''
Cherington said it was a "mutual" decision to "give ourselves at least another week before we turn it over.''
Baseball commissioner Bud Selig had said he would intervene if the sides had not struck an agreement by Nov. 1, but evidently granted the extension.
Epstein, who was hired as Red Sox general manager in November 2002, left last month to become the Cubs' president of baseball operations. Epstein had one year left on his contract as Boston's GM. Cherington was promoted by the Red Sox to replace him.
"There aren't a lot of precedents, on the executive -- there aren't a lot of managerial precedents, either, as far as compensation is concerned, but there are even (fewer) on the executive side,'' Cherington said. "Because of that, our position has been we have to look at this particular circumstance. There was an understanding, again, at the very beginning the Red Sox would get significant compensation if Theo left to go to Chicago. That's been the challenge, agreeing on what significant means.
"But I think again, in Theo's case, if we rewind the clock this was not someone who ownership was looking to push out the door in any way and we were still in a position of having a really good team in 2012. He was under contract, and then we had a manager leaving, we had a manager search going on, so there were a lot of things going on at the time that made him leaving perhaps challenging. I think that's where our ownership feels we need to be compensated for that.''
Gordon Edes covers the Red Sox for ESPNBoston.com.