Minutes before Cubs president Theo Epstein’s annual postmortem, whispers among reporters rose in the Wrigley Field interview room as a media-relations executive from the business operation and recently reassigned baseball executive Jason McLeod entered the room and waited against a wall.
Could bigger changes than manager Joe Maddon’s firing be afoot? What about McLeod, whose scouting and player-development departments sputtered and stalled for the last eight years? Where was general manager Jed Hoyer? Could a change even involve Epstein himself?
Then Epstein walked in from another door, set some notes near the microphone and answered more than 60 questions from reporters about the 2019 season and what might come next.