For anyone who may have been surprised by Jake Peavy's exercising of his no trade clause yesterday, I would respond with why? After the 2007 season, when the Padres finished in 3rd in the NL West despite terrific seasons by himself and Chris Young, Peavy signed a a 3 year extension on top of his original contract thus dedicating himself to the Padres until at minimum 2012. When Peavy signed this deal in 2007 he was effectively signing up to be on a losing team for years. The Padres offense was putrid in 2007 and with Mike Cameron's impeding free agency was only set to get worse. He had to fully understand that outside of the emerging Adrian Gonzalez there were no big time hitting prospects on their way. He had to understand that life in Padre land was going to consist of him trying to squeeze out 3-2 victories and watching his fellow pitching staff struggle to do the same. All he had to do to understand this was look at teammate Chris Young, whom in 30 starts in 2007 posted a 3.12 ERA but was only rewarded with 9 wins.
So yesterday when the Padres "traded" Peavy to the White Sox pending his agreement, it was far from a done deal. The man signed up for losing and living in San Diego just a year and a half ago, was one year and one month of losing really going to change his mind? Especially when the change was coming in the way of switching to a more difficult league as well as moving to Chicago, not exactly the tropical paradise of San Diego.
Perhaps at some point in time this season Peavy snaps and says get me out of here. But right now no one should be surprised if he rejects moving again because there only have been 200 games of baseball between now and when he decided to keep playing for a loser.
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