If you follow the wonderful site MLBTradeRumors, you've noticed that there have been lots of conversations about the trade value of Adrian Gonzalez. Many people including Jon Heyman have floated about his value. The GM has even stated that "no player" is untouchable, aka Peavy and Gonzalez. On one hand you can understand the logic. The Padres farm system isn't terribly strong and their current roster can only be classified as poor or worse. Adrian Gonzalez is the ideal player a contender would want to trade for. First off he's terrific, he's already got 18 homers. He's in his prime at age 27. He never misses a game. And most importantly he's signed through 2011, and he's on the cheap. Gonzalez makes just $8.25 million spread over 2009-2011. He'll get a kings ransom on the market.
The problem is that the Padres are already one of the lowest payrolls in the big leagues. Despite this they still have maintained better than average attendance rate. At what point in time do they say we have to have at least on player on our roster who is worth coming to see. If they trade Gonzalez and Peavy to boot, who in their right mind is going to go to a Padres game? Maybe its best for the baseball team to build for the future, but there's got to be a breaking point where telling your fans "don't even bother coming to the stadium for the next two years" is a bad idea.
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