Jake Peavy Rumors: Monday

i'm glad we've they've decided there's a possibility a trade can be made...

i'm sure by dangling brian giles they could get the devil rays interested.

but, for some reason, this all seems to big and good to be true.

LETS JUST GET IT DONE JIMMY!!!!

As a padres fan, i love jake peavy and he has won us many games...

But he's never really won "the big game" over his career, he hasnt had to many chances...

But idk, if he's the guy that brings them over the top to the world series.

Hopefully we get a nice package with vitters in exchange. he truly is a great pitcher, in petco or wrigley or any other park for that matter.

no good. in order to send marquis to the orioles the cubs would have to keep his contract. further luke scott is more valuable than marquis.

That would be a good deal for the Cubs, but I think Cedano would have to be included or the Padres wont do it. The Cubs dont need Marshall, and he hasnt impressed me much at all...and Vitters is a player for the future, so the Cubs can sacrifice him in the trade to win now. Cedano and Hart will be the big losses for the Cubs, but both can be easily replaced.

I think if there is no 3rd team, and I hope there isnt...especially with the Orioles involved, then the Cubs will have to add a 5th player. I dont want to give up Fontenot, but maybe Donald Veal?

I thought the whole idea of getting a third team was so we didn't have to give up Vitters. I thought Vitters took the place of the pitching we don't have. I was thinking that if we swapped Pie for Olson our deal would look like:

Orioles: Pie
San Diego: Marshall, Olson, Cedeno, Colvin/Fontenot/Hart
Cubs: Peavy

You need Vitters to GET that front line pitching that the Cubs lack. You cannot get good young pitching for Pie, Cedeno, Marshall, etc. It's going to involve Vitters.

Obviously, Towers likes the deal with the Cubs better or he would have taken the Braves offer in the first place. I seriously doubt Towers cares which team Peavy goes to, he just wants the most in return. Morton and Reyes have not done anything at the ML level (Morton was one of the worst starters in the NL with more than 15 starts last year). Marshall has had an ERA in the 3's his first 2 ML seasons. Vitters is the best prospect in the whole conversation to date, bar none.

The Braves wouldn't give up any of their top tier prospects and the Cubs appear willing to do that - that is the difference. If Braves fans are upset, they should blame Wren for not wanting to trade any of their top 5 prospects for a CY winner - not Towers.

The problem with the Braves package is that the first half, if not more, of Yunel's service time would be waisted when they weren't competing. I think its pretty clear that Towers prefers the Cubs package because:

1. It has more upside
2. There is more pitching
3. The centerpiece of this deal would be ready when they are ready to compete again, in 2 to 3 years.

I'm not sure how you can blame him. Its as simple as this. The braves can still have him, but like many said from the beginning, it seems like you need to be giving up Heyward or Hanson to make it happen. Wren isn't willing, which is his call...and he may be smarter for it. However, the Cubs are willing to give up that type of prospect, and it seems that is what Towers wants.

"As much as the Braves fans may love their package, it really wasn't anything that would blow you out of the water. Personally, If i'm the Padres and rebuilding for 2010-2012, I'd take the guy with monster potential in Vitters."

Uh, no. I wouldn't take some 19 year old whom there is a good chance will be a bust (like all prospects.) If he is damn great, why the Cubs dumping him with 3-4 other players for a pitcher with an eight-figure salary and a better-than-average chance of injury? Two huge injury risks in Peavy and Harden? Boy you can just see the 2009 postmortem "why the Cubs failed" stories written already!

Anyway, Towers is doing his usual song-and-dance again. The Braves' package was better (than the Cubs'), the Cubs package is good enough for Peavy and he isn't jumping on any of it. I bet at this point Peavy is a Padre till July 2009.

Nice post Aduncaroo! I guess we agree then. We basically posted the same thing at about the same time.

Agreed tomfromsd...I think as a Cubs fan and as a Pads fan, we are on the same page.

"Two huge injury risks in Peavy and Harden?"

Peavy has averaged 193+ IP over the last 6 seasons. Maybe not a workhorse, but you can't seriously say he's a "huge injury risk."

We can't be 100% sure if Peavy prefers the Cubs over the Braves unless Towers takes the offer you Cubs fans are commenting. If Towers takes that offer without coming back and asking for more and more, like he did with the Braves, then, yeah, it's pretty obvious Peavy wants to be on the Cubs. You just can't believe some writers, because they are all trying to churn up an interesting story with all the competition with other writers..I mean, am I right?

"We can't be 100% sure if Peavy prefers the Cubs over the Braves unless Towers takes the offer you Cubs fans are commenting."

Umm, I'd say we can be about 90% sure. Everything we have ever read has indicated this, from all the writers. Its nothing against the Braves, but the Cubs were a 97 win team last year, and he seems to want to win now.

"As soon as this deal is about to be made Towers will try to get Angels involved and probably the Braves again too, just to try to get more out of the deal."

I doubt it...I think Towers is actually waiting on Hendry here. Hendry wants to get the bat he wants and see where they are from there.

Ricky Nolasco is going to be pretty darned good, so I'd say he was the last one.

I think Hendry LOVES Vitters...but he also realizes that he is being paid to win right now, and right now is their window. He isn't worried about 5 years from now, he is worried about the next three. Hendry wants to get this thing done, meaning a WS. If he believes that adding Peavy to a 97 win team can do this, he will give up anyone that isn't a core part of it.

I understand the philosophy, but don't love it. Just saying that they are in win now, and Vitters aparently isn't changing that.

Banks1954,

Marshall most certainly did not have an ERA in the 3's in each of his first 2 ML seasons. In 2006, his first season in the majors, Marshall posted a 5.59 ERA with just 77 K to go along with 59 BB in 126 IP. Those numbers aren't a far cry from Morton's 6.15 ERA, 48 K, and 41 BB in 75 IP. Morton also has an excuse to a certain extent as he was pitching through injuries throughout the 2nd half of the year.

"The guy had the 3rd best OBP in baseball among SS last season, posted an OPS+ that was above league average for all positions, and by all indications 2008 was a down year for Escobar due in no small part to a lower BABIP than expected."

Nixa, you have got to stop using the BABIP argument. Average is .300, and he was over that last year! Sure it wasn't as high as his .370ish (guessing from what I remember) from the year before, but that was obviously lucky. Saying that he was "unlucky" because he has at .312 just shows that the stat is being used incorrectly. Its much, much more likely that his .367 BABIP from the year before was lucky than his numbers from last year.

Aduncaroo,

While the average BABIP may in fact be .300, that doesn't at all mean that the expected BABIP for all hitters is .300 (Ichiro is at .350+ for his career). The fact that you are saying he wasn't unlucky last year just because he was above .300 shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the statistic on your part. Yes, his 2007 season was in part due to good luck on BABIP, but that doesn't mean that his 2008 season wasn't in part due to bad luck on BABIP. I think its pretty clear that Escobar is neither fundamentally a .367 or .312 hitter on balls in play , but rather somewhere in between the two though probably closer to the lower number.

Both James and Marcel have Escobar returning to the .327-.330 level in BABIP, which I find very reasonable. Both of those numbers would obviously indicate that Escobar was unlucky on balls in play last year, as I suggested.

"He's heard the Padres might be concerned with Vitters' hand/wrist."

First of all, as a guy who wants to keep Vitters anyway, this is great news!

Secondly, the guy went .328/.365/.498 after coming back from the wrist thing. If there is something of concern, you want him to take more walks...but I think the wrist is fine.

milb.com has put up the first prospect ranking list of the winter, the top 50.

Vitters wasn't in it.

"but Axelrod says they only talked about Peavy for about three minutes."

Ha! Yeah right! We're going to be hearing a lot of ridiculous quotes from GM's, agents and journalists this week. Should be a very amusing next few days...

as an o's fan im not to familiar with braves prospects... as for olson he's from southern california. perhaps thats a factor in the possible move of him to san diego.
as for him as a prospect, though he has been highly regarded in our system for a few years now, no one has ever said he'd be anymore than a third starter.
dont know what is expected or morton or reyes....

Aduncaroo:

Get used to this crap from Towers, or the Padres, or Peavy, or who the hell else is over there taking advice from a FUC!!!! 15 year old girl in a drama class!!! I swear this guy Towers and Axelrodme and even Peavy are the new three stooges of the new century!!

That's quite an expensive cab ride!

;-)

But if you read that Crasnick story more carefully, they did drive together, but did not take a CAB. I'm sure you meant an "r" there instead of a "b." Pretty funny tho to think of a poor team like the Padres trying to pay for that fare.

While Vitters is a great young prospect we need to remember that he has never succeeded above rookie ball. Now that is not a knock on him but more of a way to temper expectations. It takes a number of high schoolers an extra year to get out of rookie ball, the problem is that usually they weren't as high profile as Vitters. When you look at the other top high school talents, from 07, Moustakas, Dominguez, and Heyward all have suceeded in full season ball. Vitters is a step behind them, he didn't even make Mayo's top 60 prospect list which is not just Mayo's opinion but a compliation from scouts.

I do think to get this deal done the Cubs do need to involve a 3rd team. So I don't think its a stretch to say that the Braves package was better than what the CUBS have to offer. Remember the original reported offer for Peavy was Escobar and Schafer plus a pitching prospect. When Towers wanted a 2nd pitching prospect the Braves switched out Schafer for Gorky's. Cubs don't have the luxarey to switch out parts (esp. after giving away Ceda) Vitters, Marshall, Pie, Hart (Fontenot/Cedeno/ whoever else is needed to get it done) is the best the Cubs have to offer. I'm not saying that the Cubs have a bad offer, Vitters, Marshall, Olsen, Hart + one more is a nice offer. But the Cubs are litterally betting the farm on this deal.

they couldn't afford to rent a car, or heaven forbid, drive their own?

uhhhh, wouldn't that be mlb.com ? Since he said, "MLB.com has put up the first prospect rankings..."

I posted the wrong link.

http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/8912072?MSNHPHMA

Ken Rosenthal is actually talking to GM's, agents and aGMs. He's not reading news papers and posting secondary material.

I have my own web site but I refuseto advertise on it. As you can see, I am a sabremetrician and I work for a Major League baseball team. It's hilarious seeing all this and then being in a room with real baseball people. Reality and whats going on in web sites are two totally different things.

So thanks Tim, for putting the time together to provide lnks to major publications all around the country.

If anyone is interested on what it all means and it's impact, please feel free to contact me.

I no longer evaluate fantasy teams. I'm sorry, I just don't have the time to analyze everyone's, and when I cherry picked people got mad but feel free to contact me. If I am not swamped and/or your league drafts early, be my guest to send it over. And if anyone is concerned, I report to the Player personnel director for the NY Mets. His name is Tony the Tiger and no, he is nt the spokesman for Frosted Flakes

"Anyone can post about rumors"

Hence the name, mlbtraderumors.com. good thing you're a saberamtrician, though, since you can't read plain english. is this guy for real?

They took a cab because of the weather

Wow, how defensive. I struck a nerve. yes, I questioned the site. I don't understand it and I wanted an explanation but since you're so bright all I got was attacks.

I don't understand a site dedicated for rumors if they're spit back out, and if someone of them are not correct.

You guys are right. My opinion shouldn't matter to you. Just like yours doesnt to me.

But still, no ones been able to expain it but I thank you for your intelligent insight.

hahahaha. i love this guy. please, stat man, keep on going. i bet tony reali is down on his knees ready to unzip the flap to get his nickname back from such an amazing guy.

Hey Stat Man -

For someone who supposedly despises this site, you're sure posting an awful lot on it.

How about you shove off, quit throwing around insults and go back to your "baseball job". No one is impressed by you.

stat-well, first, i contributed to the drinking fund for the floor i lived on in college. then, i contributed to the group of cubs fans trying to raise enough money to buy the team, though my $1.00 wasn't nearly enough. however, i continue to contribute to this site by occasionally posting something that matters, though i'll be the first to admit sometimes my ideas aren't the greatest or particularly ground-breaking. but i don't think i'm going to contribute to you making any more of an ass of yourself, but i'll happily remember you visiting, and i'll still post once you've moved on. oh, and the site is a news aggregator, essentially just a collection of links with some editorial content added by the moderator, a guy named Tim (great job Tim) and his staff (great job everyone else as well), who started doing this for fun, then found he could make some pretty good coin doing it. but, best of luck advising the mets, i hope they find a bullpen through your tutelage.

statman if you are working for the mets then how does it feel to completely F things up 2 years in a row? what an idiot

I love how stat-man claims he helped work on the financing for multiple stadiums yet he uses the abbreviation of M for million, when in the financial world MM is the universal abbreviation for million. Though its rarely used M would stand for thousand. I'm pretty sure by worked on, he at best means he looked at the documents one time.

In that case, I was heavily involved in the billion dollar deal for the Cowboys new stadium. Do I win some respect points?

The cubs franchise is not part of the bankruptcy filing - http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/wire?section=mlb&id=3754785

studio-i actually didn't even contribute a dollar, so feel free to blame me for the cubs' financial trouble.

as far as chapter 11 goes, i know nothing about how bankruptcy works, but shouldn't the cubs be somewhat protected since they are already up for sale?i'm sure the prospect of them filing for chapter 11 has surfaced before. of course with the cubs long history of good luck and things always coming out ok, i don't think there's anything to worry about. seriously though, i kind of suspected tribune co. would file sooner or later, and i'm hoping this just speeds up the process of getting the cubs sold.

Peavy is not coming to Chicago.

100,

I won't blame you. I'm not that rich to be a bidder. The sale of the Cubs is going on with the bidders. It will be done in a few months. I know we keep hearing that. Every year, Zell has to pay the loan people for the Tribune dollars he borrowed. He put very little of his own money in the purchase. This happens in June, I believe. The process for selling the Cubs has taken longer than anyone thought. Partially because of the economy, partially because of Zell. Up to this point he has held out for the most dollars he can get from the Cub buyers. The team is really the only big money maker under the Tribune umbrella. Some feel he could have been done with this if he sold by now. He felt different. Regardless, the sale is going to happen soon...not soon enough for all of us.

I know I feel like I bought part of the team with all the money I spent at Wrigley over time. I'm sure many fans feel the same.

David,
Side note, I know Castanza worked for the Yankees. There was an episode where he was offered a job with the Mets and was trying to get fired by the Yankees. Does not matter. Anyway...

Doesn't everyone always associate the words "underachieving" and "injury prone" with the Cubs farm system. So why would they trade Peavy to the Cubs centered around a guy whose wrist is a worry? Sean Marshall? He couldn't beat out Jason Marquis. What does that tell you about the guys ceiling? They had another high pick like this. He just fired Scott Boras lmao. Thats right Corey Patterson. Is that what you want for a number 3 pitcher out of Petco? lol

Love this site! Just curious.... does Tim make money off this site?? If so, is this his only job? because that'd be soooo awesome!!

I guess I can't state my opinion because its the cubs, right?

Yeah Tim is super cool dude. Even though his favorite team is my ARCH RIVAL.

atlantabred-you might be right about the cubs trading vitters, but if i'm the cubs i don't hesitate to do this deal. this is the best cubs team any of us have seen and they're window to win is 2, maybe 3 years, and vitters is at least 3 years away. i'm of the opinion that big market teams can afford to give up prospects for the right deal, and i think peavy is that sort of guy. i usually sit out of the prospects debate because in the end i feel they are just prospects. they're numbers are against pitchers of wildly varying quality and are too much of an unknown. the cubs don't exactly have a track record for churning out great young players, so when they do produce one, and they already have such a good team, and they can use that one blue chip to acquire someone like peavy and give this team a downright scary rotation, i absolutely do it. i understand those that wouldn't, but i would.
once new owners are in, i think they'll be willing to spend money to keep a competitive team on the field. i'm also hoping that today's news about tribune filing for chapter 11 speeds up the process.
and yes, this it tim's only job.
and statman, i really hope you come back soon, i miss you already...

It's really interesting that the ONLY team bidding for Peavy is the CUBS, which means, they are essentially bidding against themselves.

I agree with Green Grove but why send Giles to the Rays. Haven't there already been rumors about Giles to the Cubs. This seems to make sense, if the Padres want to unload half of their household name players.

Giles to Cubs? Yeah, I don't think so.

I've commented on this prolonged snooze of a story several times, so all I have now is a brief note:

Anyone else disappointed in the way Towers has conducted himself throughout this process? I find some of his tactics a bit juvenile and misleading. That is not the way to conduct business in baseball, folks.

All you people keep saying how bad Towers is doing with the Peavy trade. Towers has is hands tied behind his back. 1.) Peavy has in the final call on the trade. 2) Towers can not deal the whey he uesd to because of Sandy Alderson has to make sure it is part of moneyball. 3) John Moores is going threw a divorce and need to cut payroll fast. (Moores needs to sell the team)