The latest Sox proposal is well above the three-year deal averaging $850,000 a year that the club is believed to have offered Epstein as part of its original proposal, and would more than triple the $350,000 salary Epstein is believed to have received in 2005, the last year of a three-year deal for just under $1 million.
Epstein, who turns 32 on Dec. 29, was the youngest GM in baseball at the time he was hired and in 2004 became the youngest GM to win a World Series.
The Sox proposal would place Epstein in the upper echelon of GM pay in the majors, in a group that includes Brian Sabean of the Giants, Walt Jocketty of the Cardinals, and Brian Cashman of the Yankees, although Cashman, who just finished his eighth season as GM of the Yankees, is also at the end of his deal and reportedly is mulling a three-year, $5 million offer to remain in New York.
John Schuerholz, architect of the Atlanta Braves team that has won 14 consecutive division titles, reportedly is paid $1.6 million, the highest salary paid anyone who is exclusively a GM (Dave Dombrowski, president-GM of the Detroit Tigers, reportedly is paid $2 million a year).
Red Sox ownership raised the bar for executive pay when it made a five-year offer averaging $2.5 million to Oakland GM Billy Beane before hiring Epstein.
Beane, citing family issues, elected to remain on the West Coast, and last spring he signed an extension with the Athletics that pays him more than $1 million in salary, includes an ownership stake, and is believed to include language that would enable Beane to ascend to a club presidency in a year or two.
The Sox' original offer to Epstein was just 20 percent of what they offered Beane, which is the primary reason negotiations between the sides have proceeded at a slow pace.
