Theo talked about Ryan Dempster a bit today.
"Ryan never got the opportunity for more than an hour to fully contemplate Atlanta with a deal actually in place," Epstein said. "I feel for him. Instead of having time to contemplate it privately, he had everyone telling him what to do and asking questions about it. I think it's hard to criticize him."
"He didn't say 'no' — he said, 'not now,'" Epstein said. "He said, 'No, I'm not going to go to Atlanta until I see about L.A.' Atlanta very reasonably didn't want to wait around and risk not getting a pitcher. He had a place he wanted to go, and a clear No. 1, which is his right, and he wanted to see that through and I don't hold that against him."
"It's not fair for anyone to criticize Ryan unless they've been in that spot," Epstein said. "It's a right he's earned. Do we wish he would've had 12 places that were an ideal destination for him instead of one? Sure. That Atlanta deal that we had lined up, I felt was an outstanding deal for the organization. Would we have liked to have executed it? Absolutely."
"Once he came into our office and actually heard the conversations we had with L.A., he came to realize, 'OK, that's not actually going to happen, let me consider a couple other places,' and the deal got done with about three minutes left," Epstein said.
"If someone really wants to go to a place, you can tell them over and over again that it's probably not going to happen, but unless they're convinced of that, they may not want to move on to their second choice," Epstein said.
"I know it started to be characterized in the media as contentious, and it wasn't at all," Epstein said. "Had we made that trade with Atlanta, we don't get [Arodys] Vizcaino for Maholm and Johnson. Everything worked out in the end."