BOOOOOORRRRINNG.

I'm so amazingly bored with the Padres. It's shifted from boredom on the field to annoyance with the front office and now back to boredom again. It's terrifyingly bad.

DO SOMETHING.

"Oh we gotta get rid of Peavy... Oh Trevor's gonna go someplace else... Oh there's a divorce... Oh give us credit for the winning seasons before the 99 losses... Oh why don't fans like us... Oh wahwahwah..."

I wish something would just happen already. Trade Peavy. Get him out of here. Lemme see what we're gonna work with next season. Get Trevor out of here or don't. Just make sure I'm entertained.

WHY AM I NOT ENTERTAINED!?!?!?!

Yes. It's about me. Greater good? I'll go volunteer time and donate money to a charity. Sports? It's about ME. ME. ME. ME.

C'mon Padres. Do something entertaining. PLEASE.

OK. I got some good ones this time. Or maybe not. Who knows.

• Replace all of the grass on a baseball field with dirt from the basepaths and then replace the basepaths and warning track with grass. The grass might be slightly tougher to run on for the offense, but if a ball isn't caught on a fly, it'll take much more creative bounces. Plus it would look cool, like a film negative.
  
• Headsets and earpieces so that players and coaches don't need all of those ridiculous hand signals. Imagine the precision timing of a double-steal or how much more creative pickoff attempts would be if they were coordinated via voice command.
• No longer require players to play "both sides". In other words, 9 defensive players and 9 offensive players. It works for football. Wait, I've done this one before, right? 

Notsellingjeans over at Athletics Nation has a pretty good rant about how the Padres front office looks right now regarding Jake Peavy. He puts most of the blame on Kevin Towers, which is partially right...

1)  He thought he could get a Dan Haren-quality package for Peavy, and 2)  he thought that he should open up the bidding to every team possible first and then try to get Peavy's blessing for that particular team afterward, rather than covertly getting Peavy's blessing and then quietly engaging 1-2 teams only to avoid media leaks.

That much is true, but this is wrong:

The Padres and Towers' motive - extracting maximum value - is entirely logical.  But it looks like they've overplayed their hand and suffered the consequences of seeking as many bids as possible - multiple media leaks, embarrassment, and alienation from their best trade partners in terms of logical fit...and they still haven't consummated a deal.

The Padres aren't trying to extract maximum value. They're trying to extract maximum potential value while keeping the dollar figures at a bare minimum.

So what are we dealing with?

1. Jake Peavy with a no-trade clause
2. Jake Peavy basically wants a raise from whatever team he goes to
3. The fact that KT isn't allowed to take on any contracts that would even come close to Jake Peavy's contract
4. The fact that every other GM in the game knows this.

To me, putting the blame on KT is rough. We've seen his ability to completely take advantage of other teams through trades, but this is just the toughest spot possible. What the Padres basically want is a group of can't miss prospects well within their initial contracts, from a team willing to trade them away and give Jake Peavy a raise, all knowing that they're under no threat of an actual bidding war because of the no-trade clause.

Our front office is over the barrel and it's not Jake Peavy or Trevor Hoffman's agent or other GMs that put them there. It's John Moores. Let's just get the team sold already so we can quit making some of the brightest baseball minds look like complete jackasses. 

I'm gonna go camping in Joshua Tree and I'll be back later. I need to collect my thoughts and figure out what's going on with the Padres.

The plan is to run around the desert (naked) under the light of the waning gibbous moon. Those who know me, know that I was born in the month of August, under the star sign Leo. The Leonid meteor shower will fly from my constellation's mane tonight. Everybody, pray to the baseball gods that the stars will send me a vision so that I can blog about it later.

Tempel-Tuttle! Go Padres!

JBox and I aren't around to moderate all the time, so I'd like to take a second and just remind everybody that personal attacks don't really get you anywhere.

We've let discussions go for the most part and I'll do my part when I come across blatant name calling to just get rid of those comments, but seriously, I'm not here to be your dad.

It's now very simple. If you choose to insult another Gaslamp Baller in the comments, in a fanpost or in a fanshot, you will be banned.

Yes. This includes comments in the vein of, "Are you an idiot?" Because everybody can see through your second grade "deflection". It's not an insult if I'm just asking if he is an idiot!  Sorry, dude. Banned.

Some ribbing is good natured, but everybody can tell when it crosses the line, because we get really annoyed at reading the comments. If you honestly, in your heart of hearts, can't tell when you're commenting something with an intent to be insulting, then you don't deserve to be here anyway.

Anybody that comments in this post in some whiny attempt to defend how they behave will be banned. I don't want to hear it. If you can't figure it out, then think really hard about your comments before you post them. I really miss some of the people that used to comment here regularly and I'm almost positive they're gone in part because they're turned off by some of these "healthy debates".

Thanks. Go Padres.

Very generous gift to Scripps from Mr. Moores.

The gift, from John Moores, will be used to help fund a $50 million initiative to recruit new researchers and to sustain and expand the work of scientists at The Scripps Research Institute.

Sandy Alderson, commenting on the donation said that the $2.1 million is better spent on researchers and scientists and smart dudes, not unlike himself, as opposed to the Padres and their deadbeat fans who keep asking stupid questions over and over again. F'ing dumbasses.

via www.tincaps.com

Baseball in Fort Wayne brings us the news:

With 1,387 votes being cast by Minor League Baseball fans across the country, the TinCaps garnered 793 votes (57% of all votes cast) to route the competition. 

I'll be perfectly honest and admit that I hadn't even realized that the Wizards had changed their name. I'm looking forward to the actual uniforms. I'm picturing some Captain EO style metallic fabrics and/or extensive use of vegegation.

Maybe a Project Runway episode is needed here! Make it work!

It looks like it's almost close. It's coming through the wire via Met's Today that the Atlanta offer looks good and the Padres want Jake Peavy to seal the deal.

Answer by Friday?

The Braves have been pressuring the Padres for an answer by Friday, when the free agent market opens, because they need at least two starters -- and they want to know whether Peavy will be a Brave before they dive in. They are expected to pursue A.J. Burnett, Ryan Dempster and others -- and sign maybe one if they acquire Peavy, and two if they don't.

It looks like quite a package on paper:

Under terms of the deal discussed by the Braves and Padres, San Diego would receive shortstop Yunel Escobar, Class A outfielder Gorkys Hernandez, one of two starting pitchers -- Charlie Morton or Jo-Jo Reyes -- and either reliever Blaine Boyer or one of two minor-league left-handers (one of which is believed to be Jeff Locke).

And by "quite a package" I mean "a bunch of guys who haven't won a Cy Young Award who's collective names remind me of the Snorks". Still, I welcome the chance to greet Yunel, Gorkys, Blaine, Jo-Jo and Charlie. I'm sure their delightful undersea adventures will entertain us all to no extent next season.

via ficklinm.com

Emphasis mine from DePo's blog.

After a couple of weeks passed without contact, Trevor's representatives did request a meeting with Kevin, Sandy, and John Moores. Kevin responded to this request directly to Trevor saying that he and Sandy would be happy to meet with Trevor. We did not hear back regarding a possible meeting. After one month had passed, it was clear that our offer was not sufficient, so we officially withdrew it.

Again I'll say that I don't think the above facts are all that important. The reason is that there is simply no graceful way to handle this situation. Trevor has meant too much to this franchise for any kind of separation to be seamless. No matter how the situation is handled, if Trevor pitches elsewhere in 2009, it will be deemed to have been handled poorly. We know that.

 Jayyyyyyyy in the comments sums up my thoughts before I can:

I'm sure the same thing was said after Todd Walker was cut, after Khalil Greene stopped getting paid, after the hold-up in the negotiations with Allan Dykstra, after it came out that the team was shopping Jake Peavy, after the team called out Brian Giles for using his no-trade clause, and so on and so forth. Do you realize that this is one of the biggest concerns of many of your business-savvy fans? That there is a graceful way to handle many of these situations and the Padres seem to not care how many fans they alienate, especially Sandy "I'm not selling anything" Alderson.

I know one way to deal with being in situations that have no "graceful way to handle" them. Stop being the type of organization that puts themselves into crap situations.