Theo Epstein has acknowledged that late in his tenure with the Red Sox he lost patience in order to try to win immediately. "Some of the offseasons that we had were more offseasons of convenience -- giving in to the need to be good next year," Epstein said in an interview with 98.5 The Sports Hub in Boston. The result of "giving into that monster," as Epstein put it, was spending big in free agency. "It's a natural push and pull that exists in any sports organization," said Epstein, now the president of the Cubs. "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. ... "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's my responsibility if we got out of whack. And then you could always execute better, too. ... We didn't execute well in big-name free agency."