Orange County Register

Padres general manager Kevin Towers said the agent for 2007 Cy Young Award winner Jake Peavy has given the Padres a list of seven teams for whom Peavy would consider waiving his no-trade clause.

That list includes five National League teams (the Dodgers, Cubs, Astros, Braves and Cardinals) and only two American League teams that he “may” consider — the Angels and Yankees.

“His preference is to stay in the National League,” Towers said. “He likes that aspect of the game.”

Towers said he will be canvassing all of those clubs during this week’s GM Meetings in Dana Point (though he has had no discussions with the Angels yet) after giving “exclusivity” to one team over the past week or so. That didn’t yield enough progress to justify narrowing the field at this point, he said.

“There’s probably a handful of clubs we’ll focus on,” he said. “A lot of those clubs we’ve had a great deal of dialogue with before even getting to the meetings.”

That “exclusivity” is believed to have gone to the Braves but they balked at including their top pitching prospect, Tommy Hanson, and outfield prospect Jordan Schafer in a package for Peavy.

Towers said any team looking to acquire Peavy better be ready to pay accordingly in “a significant deal.” He pointed to the five-player package the Braves sent to the Rangers for Mark Teixeira in July 2007 which included left-hander Matt Harrison (9-3 in 15 starts for the Rangers last season), catching prospect Jarrod Saltalamacchia and top shortstop prospect Elvis Andrus as an example.

“We have to have a couple players in any deal we do that are going to make an impact on our major-league club next year … and a couple prospects,” Towers said.

The Padres’ priority is on getting young pitching in exchange for Peavy, he said, but “we just need to get the best players back that we can.”

“We don’t expect it to be easy getting a deal done,” he said. “We’re expecting a lot in return.”

He would not eliminate the Dodgers from consideration simply because they play in the same division as the Padres.

“I’m not opposed to it,” he said. “To me, it’s all about being happy with the players you’re getting back.”

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.