Jake Peavy in a Cardinals uniform? Panties: Moist.
Last week the San Diego Fathers had information ‘leaked’ that Jake Peavy, their sole player worth a shit, would be available for trade… if the offer (of course) is “right”. Sources familiar with the situation have tabbed the asking price for the All-
Star pitcher at two Megan Fox’s and a Jessica Alba. When Peavy’s agent was contacted about this particular development he was quoted as saying Mr. Peavy’s preference is to stay where he is (of course) but if he were to be traded X Y Z teams would be the destinations he would waive his no-trade clause for. Included in that exclusive list of cities he’d like to come to and pillage jersey chaser cha cha’s in was none other than St. Louis Mo. Home to the brilliant stage and film Actor Kevin Klein and the world’s largest Amoco sign. (Though, I doubt either of those factors was weighed at all in Mr. Peavy’s decision to include St. Louis on his short list.) This news brings incredible jubilation to those types of people who say things like “imagine if we had Chris Carpenter, Adam Wainwright and Jake Peavy plus…. All in the same rotation!” Those people also let their dogs ride on their laps in the car, Wear Obama tees to the gym and try to sleep with your wife. In other words they are not men; they’re kittens kneading at the teat of mama DeWitt. Convinced his pocketbook is really opening up after the signing of Kyle Loshe, they nuzzle and suck and wait for that sweet milk of new and exciting players not cut by KC to fill their eager mouths and the Birds roster. They don’t realize it ain’t happening. Peavy isn’t getting traded to the Cardinals and the reasons make a very short list.
Reason 1: Money. Bill DeWitt has it. You don’t. And guess what? You’re not the one approving trades. Peavy will make 11 million dollars in 2009 then 15, 16 and 17 million respectively through 2012. Any trade partner will almost have to agree to pick up the club option for 2013 valued at 22 million. True, Mr. Peavy is hitting the prime of his career and this contract does have a cost-certainty factor that an aggressive suitor of CC Sabathia or Derek Lowe this off-season does not provide. In fact, the Padres are eager to move Peavy before the FA period begins to maximize their leverage of having a player market of 1… for the next 3 weeks. And true, compared to similar caliber pitchers his contract isn’t the most expensive. BUT- at the end of the day, 15 million dollars is fucking expensive… especially with that big old matzo ball hanging in the clubhouse called Chris Carpenter’s contract. The Cardinals have the talent needed to bring Peavy to the club. Of this fact no one has any doubt. What they do lack is the stones to make a big play with another big contract. Like it or not the Cardinals don’t like to spend money. (See: Lack of free agent signings, manual flushers on toilet stalls, etc al.) When it comes right down to it- it’s much cheaper to bury guys in AAA or AA and call them the future than pay a guy we know has Cy Young caliber stuff to play today.
Reason 2: See Reason 1.
I’d love to have Jake Peavy as a Cardinal. I’d most likely by a jersey tee with his name and number on it. I’d offer him any poon I could. Bottom line, though? He isn’t getting traded to the Cardinals because he makes too much money. The most surprising part, though? I kind of agree with this decision to not trade for Peavy that I can’t confirm but am pretty sure has been made.
Matt Garza and Jon Lester, the starters for Game 7 of the ALCS last night have a combined salary of $827,000 for the entire 2008 season. So the nearly 200 million dollars the Red Sox spent this year to build a championship roster only about .4% of it was spent on the most important person to their season. Baseball has a funny way of working out like that. And if you, as an organization, already have a guy that can be your ‘stopper’ in a short series then what you, as an organization, really need is more guys like, well, Kyle Loshe and Braden Looper. Guys who eat up innings and won’t go on the DL.
WTF?
Yeah, I said it. Braden Looper would be more important to the 2009 Cardinals chances of making the post-season than Jake Peavy. Maybe it would make for better water cooler talk or ESPN coverage to sign Peavy. In fact, I know it would. 
But the last the Cardinals really need is a guy, like Carpenter, who when he plays, plays well- but can’t be counted on because something is a little bit off. You can have one of those guys on a team and we have ours. What we need now is to build a solid back end of the rotation that will each get 200 plus innings and 10-16 wins and a bullpen that won’t shit the bed every single fucking time we have a lead. (And a LH power bat, but that’s a topic for another day.) It’s not glamorous. It doesn’t inspire you to pick up another Pujols pack for cousin Sal at Christmas time. But in this particular case of cheapness- I agree. We don’t need Peavy.
Please remember that at no point am I opposed to actually getting Jake Peavy. If we traded Rasmus and Wallace and say Motte for Peavy, I would lick on DeWitt’s apple sack right here in this space. But I don’t think it’s going to happen and I do think that the rationale is pretty sound.
One last note- a very well placed source close the recent Albert Pujols surgery has assured me AP is “ecstatic” about how his elbow is feeling since the surgery and is “fired up” to get to play baseball next season.
This person has made me feel roughly 10% better about the situation than I did before.
Also, we probably didn't need 2 pics of Megan Fox in the same post, since she is mentioned, offhandedly, once. Then again, we complely did.
athooks writes every Monday for InsideSTL.com and regularly for CardinalsDiaspora.com