Olney: "The Padres are being stripped down and prepared for sale"

Pathetic. If Buster is right…and in the case of the Padres, he’s usually dead on…it infuriates me that John Moores won’t just step up and be open and honest about what’s going on right now. It really wouldn’t take much to make me reasonably happy at this point.

1. Sit down with Trevor Hoffman. The guy has f**king earned that. Give him what he’s asking for and just sit down with the guy and be straight with him.

2. Let everyone know your plan is to sell the team. “Unfortunately due to this difficult time in the midst of a divorce…Becky and I have come to the conclusion that it is in the best interests of the San Diego Padres for us to sell to an owner that can bring a World Series to the deserving fans of the Padres. Blah, blah, blah.” Whatever.

Would it kill this guy to cut the Howard Hughes sh*t and just tell us what’s really going on? I’m not asking for every little detail. I’m not expecting him to admit we’re going to suck for the next couple of years…just do the basics.

But I guess if he doesn’t even have the class to sit down with a guy that saved 552 games for his team and basically helped make Petco Park a reality…what can the fans expect from him?

What ever is going on inside the organization there is one theme that is revolving around the whole situation…cloudiness. The Padres can’t even be clear with the one man who has been the cornerstone of organization (along with Tony Gwynn) for 16 years. What must Trevor Hoffman be thinking when he can’t even get his bosses to tell him where the organization is going and how or if he is going to be involved.

And what about me, the fan. I realize that the economics of baseball is a driving force when comes to payroll. But to gut a team, not to mention gut it’s indentity, in an offseason so that the following spring hardly anyone will recognize it is mindblowing. Possibly getting rid of a #1 starter, our starting shortstop, and maybe our rightfielder does have a horrible likening to the 1993 Padres.

So, what our core going to be? Adrian Gonzales and Chris Young. Hmm, not bad, but I want more. I will stick with my Padres through it all, but I want the organization to show me that there is a future.

but there is no way to for him to do it. His main assets are the team and his real estate holdings. If Becky is supposed to get 1/2 and real estate is in the crapper, then the only thing to do is split is the team – which means selling it. If John and Becky weren’t fighting, they could run the team together and he could start paying her off with increased TV revenues – after the current Cox contract runs out in ’11. That would still mean stripping the payroll down to nothing since John would not want to put any of his own money back into the team.

I see lots of cheap hot dogs and cheaper 3.2 beer in the Padres’ future.

The Padres are gonna suck big time.

I don’t see why fielding a competitive, even contending NL West team in ’09 is presented as an insurmountable obstacle.

That said, a firesale, conducted by smart people (like those who would trade Peavy in a package for Yunnel Escobar but not Ronny Cedeno), wouldn’t be the end of the world. The ’93 firesale followed by ownership change set the stage pretty quickly for ’96 and ’98.

being competitive, then, well, you may be right. I just don’t think we are that far off from where we were a year and a half ago, though it would clearly require some moves for the pitching staff and Towers’ finding his old mojo for the bullpen.