It's official: Selig to decide Theo comp

The Associated Press is reporting that commissioner Bud Selig will decide the matter of the compensation that the Red Sox receive from the Cubs for Theo Epstein, who left his tenure as Boston GM with one year remaining on his contract in order to become Cubs president of baseball operations. From the story:

"Selig said Friday night he'd like to have it done as quickly as possible. He said he gave the clubs more latitude in hopes they'd reach an agreement, but they couldn't. Selig said now it's his decision and that's OK, all part of the job."

Red Sox GM Ben Cherington, who had worked with Epstein at times this offseason, discussed the challenge of determining compensation during an interview on The Big Show earlier this week.

"I think it is more challenging to figure out and isolate what the value of an executive is, especially given these circumstances, than it would be for a player. You trade players all the time. That’s our job, to assign a value to a player. We’re constantly examining that. In this case, it’s different. It’s harder to assign a value," said Cherington. "Obviously, we feel there are certain things, and our ownership feels there are things, that indicate we should get a certain level of value for giving the Cubs the right to hire Theo. Theo and the Cubs have a different perspective. It’s not atypical for reasonable people to disagree. In this particular case, because we’re not talking about a direct trade of players, it is a little bit more challenging to narrow in on what the fair value is, so perhaps in this case we’ll get some help with it."

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