Padres, Cubs close to deal for Jake Peavy
Posted by Todd KaufmannMLB Baseball December 9th, 2008According to several sources, the San Diego Padres and Chicago Cubs could be close to a deal that would send right-hander Jake Peavy to the Windy City.
There have been several versions of this deal written as far as what players would be involved and if there is a third team involved. According to Tom Krasovic of the San Diego Union Tribune, the Philadelphia Phillies may be that third team, but the Baltimore Orioles could be involved as well. San Diego Padres’ General Manager Kevin Towers confirms that, though a deal is not done or has not been agreed upon, they have the list of names they want it’s just a matter of the teams agreeing to them. “There’s a package there that would satisfy us. Will they end up doing it? I don’t know.”
There are several names being thrown around and there are different scenarios that could play out with this deal, so it’s premature to say who’s going where just yet. What we do know to this point is Peavy would be sent to the Cubs, the Padres are looking at getting Felix Pie who they’d flip to Baltimore for young left-hander Garrett Olson, the Padres would also get 2nd baseman Mark DeRose who they would then send to Philadelphia for young pitching prospects. The other names that could be headed to San Diego are pitchers Sean Marshall, Michael Wuertz and Angel Guzman as well as Kevin Hart.
At this point, who gets the better end of this deal? Would it be San Diego, who stands to get a lot of pitching help from both Chicago and Baltimore, if in fact the Orioles are involved? Would it be the Cubs, who would be getting one of the better young pitchers in the game in Jake Peavy? Until this deal is complete, it’s going to be up for debate until all the players involved start to make an impact on their respective teams.
There is a underlining story in this deal for the San Diego Padres. If they are able to finalize the deal to send Jake Peavy to Chicago, it frees up money for them to re-start talks with long time closer Trevor Hoffman who they ended talks with a few weeks ago. It’s not that the Padres desperately need Trevor back, they are more than happy to hand the role over to right-hander Heath Bell, Hoffman’s setup man for the past two seasons, who is more than ready to become the team’s closer if the Padres are not able to come to an agreement with Hoffman.
Day 2 of the Winter Meetings should be an interesting one and maybe we’ll see this trade finalized, maybe it’ll have to wait another few days. Even if this deal isn’t agreed upon today, there are still several other interesting story lines to follow to keep us rumor fans salivating.
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Comment by Kyle Eslick on December 9th, 2008:
Sounds like the Cubs are denying this report, which doesn’t surprise me. Their ownership just filed Bankruptcy, so how can they afford Peavy?
That said, as a Cubs fan, I’m hoping they can get this deal done. That will be a mean lineup!
Comment by Todd Kaufmann on December 9th, 2008:
Kyle, the Cubs are trying to dump Jason Marquis’ contract but I think that’s the one thing holding this deal up. The Cubs are trying to get the Padres to take Marquis in return, plus $4MM of his contract, but San Diego is refusing to do so. If you ask me, if the Padres agree to take Marquis, this deal gets done.
Let’s not beat around the bush, the Padres are getting the best end of this deal by far so I’m not surprised that Chicago is hesitant to pull the trigger.
I think once the Cubs figure out who their new owner is going to be, we might see this deal come to fruition. Keep in mind, Padres’ GM Kevin Towers is already on record as saying if they can’t agree to a deal by the end of the day Friday, he’ll pull it off the table.