Jehrico

If that's true, then that's a good question. If he's relying on getting 10/5 before going somewhere, it doesn't make sense because he'd lose those 10/5 rights once he was moved, and he'd need a contractually awarded NTC (which he already has). Maybe there's another scenario that I'm not thinking of...

Olney is only repeating what's been said since the offseason began. The Padres want their payroll to be cut down to 40m, if not lower. Giles and Peavy alone make up half of that at 20m. Giles has stated that he won't waive his NTC. That pretty much forces San Diego to trade Peavy. Towers' only job this offseason is to meet ownerships request. His job probably depends on doing exactly that. Towers is probably playing the leverage game to the full extent that he can with Hendry, but Hendry isn't stupid. One question that begs to be asked is why they picked up the option on Giles? They didn't have to do that, and considering that they're dealing Peavy in a lose-lose situation from a negotiation standpoint, it really seems like it was an incredibly stupid thing to do, unless they have a gentlemans agreement that Giles will allow them to trade him to at least a limited number of teams despite his NTC in exchange for picking up the option, which he may not have gotten as much money on the FA market had they declined it.His buyout was for 3mil and his option was for 9mil. They probably felt that it's best to keep him when there's a difference of only 6mil. I agree that Giles is worth at least 6 mil...but that still doesn't mean it's in the Pads best interest to dedicate 6 mil to that position, all things considered. If they really wanted him and he was also willing, they could sign Manny to a one year deal at $16 mil, which he'd be worth way more than that, but it'd still be a bad move on their part given their payroll challenges.

Both. I think Hendry wants Towers to think he's willing to walk away if he has to give up Marshall, and is playing the games because he wants Peavy without losing Sean. I think they expect Marquis to be a problem if they try to put him in the pen/6th starter role, which Peavy would essentially relegate Marquis to. So, the best answer is to unload Marquis instead of Marshall, who won't give them the same problems.

Olney is only repeating what's been said since the offseason began. The Padres want their payroll to be cut down to 40m, if not lower. Giles and Peavy alone make up half of that at 20m. Giles has stated that he won't waive his NTC. That pretty much forces San Diego to trade Peavy. Towers' only job this offseason is to meet ownerships request. His job probably depends on doing exactly that. Towers is probably playing the leverage game to the full extent that he can with Hendry, but Hendry isn't stupid. One question that begs to be asked is why they picked up the option on Giles? They didn't have to do that, and considering that they're dealing Peavy in a lose-lose situation from a negotiation standpoint, it really seems like it was an incredibly stupid thing to do, unless they have a gentlemans agreement that Giles will allow them to trade him to at least a limited number of teams despite his NTC in exchange for picking up the option, which he may not have gotten as much money on the FA market had they declined it.

Derosa, Theriot, Fontenot and Cedeno can play 2nd base. Whose the 5th? Soriano? I don't really believe anyone sees him as a 2nd baseman anymore. Since one of the above has to play SS, that leaves 2 guys (Cedeno & Fontenot) if Derosa gets traded. That's not exactly a glut of MIs. You're exactly right. That's why I think it's the right way to go, but it's still funny that we might be looking for another 2b. It's kind of piggybacking on the jokes from last offseason about fielding an entire team of 2bmen.

That is a bit absurd. Don't you realize that there are competing entities feeding the media? Both organizations have guys who intentionally "leak" what the organization wants leaked for the purpose of gaining leverage in negotiations and controlling fans expectations. Then there are other insiders who are passing on the real stories. That's not to mention the fact that things change, and some sources who aren't leaking as part of the plan, have information that may or may not be as recent as they think it is. A reporter could have a legitimate, honest insider and pass on information that ends up being wrong. If you expect rumors to be independently verified or something like that in this type of situation, then you get no information until the deal is done. You've got to consider the motivations and the role in the negotiating process all of this plays, and always take things with a grain of salt. Reporters shouldn't be held liable for a reported rumor not coming to fruition. Hell, look at the BR fiasco last year. BR himself thought he was going to be a Cub for sure it was so far along. The fact that it didn't happen doesn't mean that reporters who said it was imminent were full of Veterans Committee. If a reporter constantly gets the party line from a source and fails to realize that his source is using him to get out what his organization wants out (i.e. the reporter fails to continually validate the credibility of his source), then that reporters deserves to lose respect. Not because of how difficult in wading through the glut of information and misinformation from both sides over fluid, evolving negotiations. That's ridiculous. If anything, when a major deal like this is in the public eye, both organizations kick their misinformation operations into overdrive. In this particular situation, too much of the Padres situation is known (owners divorce, order to cut payroll to $40 mil, Peavy's full NTC and his preferences), so the only real leverage tool that Towers has is misinformation. When you have both teams working misinformation as part of the negotiation process, you're going to get alot of conflicting reports like we've had the last few days. It should be expected. Reporters should be held accountable for what they put out there. If you have a reporter that hears something that they know isn't true, they'll put it out there just to put it out there. I can bet money on that at one point during this trade discussion some writer put out a report saying the deal is all but done when they knew they had nothing to base it on but just put it out there to grab attention. A lot of writers have basically repeated what other writers have said and just put their own twist to it. I have a good amount of respect for Bruce because he hasn't put out a report that jumped to a conclusion, even when he puts opinions into his article we can tell its just an opinion from him. I mean you have someone like Jayson Stark or Philips who puts out an article that is reiterating what another writer wrote but take credit for it. I'm just tired of so many writers putting out anything they hear even its from Towers' Bell boy. So what do you want reporters to do? It's rare that a GM will actually give details the way Towers does. Are they not supposed to report what he's saying then? I think you really have no understanding how the business works. You're also acting like most of these guys are reporting what is going to happen. If you reread most of these, they are simply saying things such as "sources close to the negotiations think a deal is very close" or something like that. Even if it's second hand reporting. Some of these guys you're lambasting work for papers who won't pay to send them to the meetings, but went them to report what they can, so all they can write about is what information is coming out of the meetings from other sources. How are you going to hold a reporter responsible when it doesn't happen, even though he reported the truth? Now, there is a small minority out there reporting second hand information as if they are getting it first hand. That's different, but that doesn't represent very much of the reporting going on here. Your expectations are ridiculous. Considering that neither Towers nor Hendry know for sure if this is really going to happen, I don't know why you expect a reporter to know any better and feed you an answer. You need to learn to be a little more objective when reading rumor reports and figuring out if you need to take them with a bit of salt. That's why all of these are called "rumors" and not "facts."

That is a bit absurd. Don't you realize that there are competing entities feeding the media? Both organizations have guys who intentionally "leak" what the organization wants leaked for the purpose of gaining leverage in negotiations and controlling fans expectations. Then there are other insiders who are passing on the real stories. That's not to mention the fact that things change, and some sources who aren't leaking as part of the plan, have information that may or may not be as recent as they think it is. A reporter could have a legitimate, honest insider and pass on information that ends up being wrong. If you expect rumors to be independently verified or something like that in this type of situation, then you get no information until the deal is done. You've got to consider the motivations and the role in the negotiating process all of this plays, and always take things with a grain of salt. Reporters shouldn't be held liable for a reported rumor not coming to fruition. Hell, look at the BR fiasco last year. BR himself thought he was going to be a Cub for sure it was so far along. The fact that it didn't happen doesn't mean that reporters who said it was imminent were full of [expletive]. If a reporter constantly gets the party line from a source and fails to realize that his source is using him to get out what his organization wants out (i.e. the reporter fails to continually validate the credibility of his source), then that reporters deserves to lose respect. Not because of how difficult in wading through the glut of information and misinformation from both sides over fluid, evolving negotiations. That's ridiculous. If anything, when a major deal like this is in the public eye, both organizations kick their misinformation operations into overdrive. In this particular situation, too much of the Padres situation is known (owners divorce, order to cut payroll to $40 mil, Peavy's full NTC and his preferences), so the only real leverage tool that Towers has is misinformation. When you have both teams working misinformation as part of the negotiation process, you're going to get alot of conflicting reports like we've had the last few days. It should be expected.

Losing DeRosa would give us less than 5 guys on the roster that can play 2b, and we can't have that. I'm not arguing the need for a platoon mate, I think it's the right way to go. I'm not banking on Fontenot hitting the way he did last year in an everyday role. But it is still funny nonetheless that we're looking at 2bs when we have 5 guys on our roster that can play 2b if needed right now.

Not really. He won't be able to DH and get distracted much for the Cubs. :D And Zambrano will crush him into the ground if he's upstaged. Mike Fontenot approves this message. Michael Barrett, on the other hand, does not.

If Bradley is healthy, he is as much of a lock to put up pretty good number as anyone else who is available.

there's is no reason to give up any sort of talent for chone figgins. he's terrible. Agreed on Figgins. He's what you would get if you crossed Juan Pierre's scrappiness and suckiness with Mark DeRosa's versatility.

Hell, if he's just looking for numbers, we can sub Dero out with Ryan Harvey, Mark Pawalek and a couple of others.

What do you expect the Pads to say? They aren't motivated to be honest here. Their motivation is to say whatever helps gain them leverage so they can get more. Right now, their only leverage is their ability to keep Peavy.

So much for the slow FA market and the down economy. I'd love me some Tex at 1b, but not for 20 per over that many years. I'll pass.

Who do you think the Brewers traded to get Sabathia in the first place? Hence, the plenty others part?

Maybe not yours, but AJ might command that.

Why do people still pretend like that means guys can't be traded? If we wanted to trade him, the receiving team would have to convince him to waive it, sure, and it would impact what we got back, but it happens quite a bit. Pretending like a guy absolutely won't be traded because of an NTC is simply ignoring history. It's a lot more common for guys with NTCs to waive them in exchange for something (more money, option picked up, etc) than it is for guys to stand fast and refuse to be traded to any other club out there. Look at Peavy...we're about to get him only BECAUSE he has a NTC. If he didn't have an NTC, we wouldn't be in the conversation. Which is exactly why it's pointless to discuss guys with NTCs in hypothetical trade scenarios (well, even more pointless than guys who don't have NTCs). Not necessarily. If Hendry really was interested in moving him, and the Yankees struck out on the FAs, you don't think there'd be some legitimate proposals there? It's more common for guys to waive the NTCs than invoke them, especially if the player has previously expressed an interest to play in that city. I don't think Zs going anywhere, but I don't think that should make it taboo to suggest what he might fetch.

They have Maybin. I doubt they want Pie. I'm pretty sure you don't need the first sentence of those two to make the second one true. I almost posted the exact same thing, then I noticed I initially misread the post as saying Pierre and not Pie. Pie's still not a bad prospect, but his star is definitely fading.

because the Marlins' asking price is higher than that Their initial asking price was two good pitching prospects. The DRays disengaged after balking at the initial offer, and no one has jumped in with an appropriate offer. I think they'll lower their demands, but only a little bit, and they'll end up keeping him. Florida is one of those teams that overvalues its players. Remember how they held the line on what they wanted for Pierre? They got three good pitching prospects for him. :doh:

That's about a third of his starts there.

Why do people still pretend like that means guys can't be traded? If we wanted to trade him, the receiving team would have to convince him to waive it, sure, and it would impact what we got back, but it happens quite a bit. Pretending like a guy absolutely won't be traded because of an NTC is simply ignoring history. It's a lot more common for guys with NTCs to waive them in exchange for something (more money, option picked up, etc) than it is for guys to stand fast and refuse to be traded to any other club out there. Look at Peavy...we're about to get him only BECAUSE he has a NTC. If he didn't have an NTC, we wouldn't be in the conversation.

This is very un-Atlanta like. They must be desperate to regain their pitching-strong identity that they had throughout the 90s.

I think your friend is being a homer, or he's just an ESPN sheep, if he's taking a hard definitive stand on this one. CC is 28, Peavy is 27. No real edge in age or projectability. Peavy's career ERA, WHIP and what not are better, but he pitches in PETCO and the NL, while CC was in the AL most of his career. They both sport a career ERA+ of 121. They both have one Cy Young award. They both average over 200 innings over the last 4 years. They've both had some DL time in their careers. CCs contract I think is riskier than Peavys, and a whole lot more expensive. Peavy will cost us players in addition to the salary though. Honestly, I think it's hard to make a definitive case for either being significantly better than the other.

bradley is a + half win defender abreu is a - 1.5 win defender in other words, bradley is $9M more valuable than abreu on defense alone and theres a decent offensive advantage for bradley as well Any kind of fielding statistics on Bradley were probably compiled a few years ago when he was healthier and actually played some OF. Plus... you know.... they're fielding statistics According to UZR hes been a pretty consistent positive performer on defense In 2007 he put up 480 innings of + a half a win OF defense In 2006 he put up 802 innings of + 1.5 win RF defense, 125 innings of + .5 win CF defense Other than the part about not being able to defend consistantly without hurting himself...Bradley is probably better off in the AL...

According to Steve Phillips, it would be 2 years, 12-14 million. Really? We can't pay that? Skip the Peavy garbage, re-sign Woody, sign Bradley and call it a day. lol. get rid of woody for 6-7 million per year to trade for gregg for what will probably be 5 million. wtg hendry While giving away a promising relief prospect for the privilege of the downgrade.