at least one person in this thread has said that getting epstein could be more important than signing fielder or pujols, and everyone seems to agree that a good GM is really important, much more so than a manager. so why is it unreasonable for the red sox to ask for cashner when the marlins just gave up two of their top 5 prospects (coming into 2011, though their stock had slipped) for a lousy manager, and tampa gave up randy winn coming off a 5 win season to get piniella? Beacuse Guillen wasn't being promoted and the Cubs weren't tampering? And Chuck LaMar is nowhere near our organization. it's a promotion, but the GM title is most important and given that the GM is the most important position in a sports organization, the red sox would have been completely justified in telling the cubs to [expletive] off and come back after next season when his contract is up. Epstein seems to think it's pretty important to not have some megalomaniac as president above him, so I'd say president is most important. They would have been justified in the sense that he's under contract to them and they can do whatever they want. They wouldn't have been with regards to professional courtesy which has been granted for roughly forever.