I don't have enough information to know if it was or wasn't. What info I do have sounds like spin from the two front offices. I am not convinced that there was nothing he could have done. Perhaps, he could have understood better that Rodriguez was a quirky person and worked out a trade well ahead of the deadline. Maybe he did that, but I do think that the GM needs to take some responsibility when they fail to get it all to work. I am confident that if the same thing happened to Avila, fan reaction would have been more negative.