Hands up, every who reckoned the Cubs jettisoning Reed Johnson or Geovanny Soto earlier this week would’ve earned a half-dozen or can’t-miss prospects. Showing the sort of patience usually reserved for persons who didn’t understand why there wasn’t a federal surplus by the end of 2009, Chicago broadcasting fixture / anti-semite Chet Coppock seems to believe Cubs GM Theo Epstein could’ve done far better at the July 31 trade deadline. (link swiped from Repoz, Baseball Think Factory)

I’ve got a message for Theo, your honeymoon is beyond over.  It crashed and burned on July 31 when you and your pals changed a team that figures to lose about 98 games before this season runs out, into a quagmire that will have to play with sledgehammers in 2013 to avoid losing 105 games.

Uh Theo, I noticed that Alfonso is still on Tom Ricketts’ payroll. It’s also dawned on me that the departures of Ryan Dempster, Geovanny Soto, Paul Maholm and Reed Johonson didn’t exactly return the kind of nucleus that screams “1927 New York Yankees”.

Epstein-baby, the honeymoon is so far gone it just passed Santa Fe, New Mexico. You fumbled. There is no other way to explain the lack of punch you brought to the deadline.

You guys are no longer A-list material. You’re baseball people who will likely to go to Arizona with a pitching rotation that reads, Jeff Samardzja and “call us next Tuesday”.