Padres Wave White Flag, Agree to Deal Peavy

There’s big news this morning that the White Sox and Padres have agreed to a trade involving San Diego starter Jake Peavy. (Peavy still has to sign off because he has a no-trade clause.) Check your calendars folks: It’s May 21 and we’ve got our first team officially throwing in the towel in Major League Baseball. And people complain about tanking in the NBA?↵↵Right now, there are no details on who the Padres would receive in return. Maybe they’ll get some big-timers like Gordon Beckham (a first-round pick in 2008) or Aaron Poreda (a first-round pick in 2007), but how do you feel if you’re someone who sunk money into season tickets for this year? And how do you feel that we haven’t even completed the second month of the season, and your team is already selling the car for spare parts.↵

↵↵There clearly are cases to be made for trading a guy when value is high, and even cautionary tales like the Twins and Johan Santana, where a team certainly didn’t get full value. Still, at the very least, why aren’t they waiting until closer to the trading deadline when, presumably, you could engage multiple teams in a bidding war for an All-Star starting pitcher?↵

↵↵The worst part is this could actually all be tied back to the owners’ love life. His divorce created financial uncertainty for the club and set up the possibility that just such a sell-off would take place.↵

↵↵I can see the shirts now: “My team’s owner got divorced, and all we got was a Chicago player to be named later.” Hopefully the owner at least got to keep their dog.↵

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