The quote from your article says: The Shaun Marcum-Brett Lawrie was met with some surprise in the lobby of the Walt Disney World Swan & Dolphin resort by a handful of rival executives who didn’t know Lawrie was available. You then said: How you took the fact a few execs did not know Lawrie was on the market to mean that Doug did not shop Lawrie around at all is baffling. I'll say it again, Lawrie was only getting traded for an established starter to help the team win that season. Not every team had what Melvin was looking for in a starter as a return, so why would he waste his time to call them up and tell them Lawrie was available? The Pirates had garbage for starting pitching that year, do you really should Melvin have called them up? The same thing goes with the Mariners, outside of Felix who was basically untouchable. I'm sure if you look at the rosters of the teams that year you can find several other teams who either were in contention and therefore were not trading their starting pitching or had garbage that wasn't worth trading Lawrie for. So I am not surprised whatsoever that a few teams didn't know Lawrie was on the market. I'm sure not every executive knew Greinke was available either before we traded for him but that doesn't mean Kansas City didn't shop him around to a couple of teams they felt they matched up well with before selecting the Brewer's offer.