Area lore has it that on Friday, Aug. 1, the agent for Padres pitcher Jake Peavy woke his client from a nap to tell him a trade to the Chicago White Sox was his for the taking \u2014 all Jake had to do was waive his no-trade clause, part of his $11 million contract for 2009. Acknowledging that he likely won\u2019t play out his San Diego contract, the 2007 Cy Young winner, hobbled by a tendon tear in his right ankle, said yes to the Sox deal, just as he\u2019d said no in May. Chicago, which is contending for the American League Central title, is now on the hook for Peavy\u2019s salary. The compensation rises incrementally to a high of $17 million in 2012, with a $22 team option the following year. And the Padres get four pitching prospects out of the transaction \u2013 presuming even two of them develop nicely, it\u2019s a cinch the Dads will come out ahead in the deal. But right now, it\u2019s Peavy\u2019s $11 million that looms large for the Padres\u2019 money men. It\u2019s nearly one-third the entire team payroll of $37 million, which ranks 28th out of 30 franchises (the New York Yankees have the largest, with nearly $210 million). It also helps illustrate the top-heavy feel to the club\u2019s salary roster. Right fielder Brian Giles, pitchers Chris Young and Heath Bell and first baseman Adrian Gonzalez command about $17 million of the remaining compensation, leaving only $9 million distributed between 16 players. Gonzalez has been making noise about leaving for the Boston Red Sox; if that transpires, the payroll would theoretically realize an immediate additional savings of $3,125,000. Beyond that, the team\u2019s lowly payroll stature not only reflects the team\u2019s make-up but its on-field play. As of Aug. 3, San Diego had won six of its last seven games \u2014 but it\u2019s saddled with a record of 44-63, also 28th best out of 30 teams. Of course, that\u2019s something of a coincidence. Even so, the loss of Peavy tends to underscore it, sort of like a self-fulfilling prophecy yet to play itself out. Jake has to do what he has to do, and at only 28, he\u2019s faced with professional and personal decisions that affect not only him but also his wife and kids. It\u2019s only too bad that those decisions have such far-reaching effect in the cultural fortunes of the eighth largest city in the United States. The recession alone has fueled the surly mood around here for months \u2014 and now this.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Area lore has it that on Friday, Aug. 1, the agent for Padres pitcher Jake Peavy woke his client from a nap to tell him a trade to the Chicago White Sox was his for the taking \u2014 all Jake had to do was waive his no-trade clause, part of his $11 million contract for […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11560","_seopress_titles_title":"Peavy trade saves payroll and little else","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11560,11593,11553],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-296142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-la-jolla-village-news","category-no-images","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=296142"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296142\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}