Armchair GM’s

James O’Connor wrote an article for Bleacher Report entitled “No Playoffs For Red Sox…..Its All Epstein’s Fault!” In his hit piece, he chews Theo a new one, or he thinks he chews Theo a new one, for not making any blockbuster trading deadline deals.

OK, yeah, right. It’s all Theo’s fault that 19 players spent time on the DL, 9 of them All Stars. It’s all Theo’s fault that the right match wasn’t available at the trading deadline. Oh I know there were some players available, but Theo doesn’t work like the Steinbrenners, who pretty much wipe their butts with C-notes. And nor should he. (We can thank ol’ King George for raising the salary bar to astronomical heights.)

O’Connor tosses around names as potential mid-season pick-ups that Theo should have gone after. We know that Theo doesn’t mortgage the farm for a quick fix. He criticizes him for claiming Damon when we all knew that it was to keep him from going to the Rays or the Yankees. And in the minuscule chance that Damon did waive his no-trade clause, well then the Sox would have had a Fenway experienced outfielder to help down the stretch.

I get a kick out of people like O’Connor who think they know better than MLB GM’s. Maybe he’s got a fantasy baseball team in 1st place in a fantasy league? They don’t call it ‘fantasy’ for nothin’, ykwim?

I certainly don’t pretend to know 1/100th of that of Theo and Tito, and while I may question some of their moves on occasion, I don’t go around calling for either of their heads on a platter. I may toss in my $0.02, but in the end, that’s all I can do. I’m sure Theo knows exactly who’s who on all 30 MLB teams all the way down to single A rookie league, what financial resources he has available, what those players are worth, and who is worth giving up. It makes me wonder why people like O’Connor are writing for a blog and not a major periodical? Why isn’t O’Connor a GM somewhere? I mean, he thinks he knows exactly what it takes to get the Sox into the playoffs. Then I clicked on his profile:

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