While it's not official yet, the Tucson Padres, who are currently owned by would be San Diego Padres owner Jeff Moorad and have been up for sale since his failed bid to move them to Escondido, may be on the move. When Moorad's sale of the T-Pads was announced, it was reported that one of the groups very interested in purchasing them from Moorad was located in El Paso, Texas. This week reports surfaced that the city of El Paso is about to consider a plan to sign a lease with a potential AAA ownership group to construct a new 9,000 seat baseball stadium on the current site of El Paso city hall. As part of the proposed deal the city's current Independent baseball team, the latest rendition of the historic El Paso Diablos, would be forced out of the currently standing city owned Cohen Stadium due to a no compete clause in the contract with MountainStar Sports Group (the potential AAA owners). Once the deal signed and the new stadium in the pipeline (and since things get approved far faster in other states unlike say California), MountainStar would be free to pursue a AAA team at that time.

More after the jump...

With no other AAA teams in the running to move after this season into El Paso it seems more than likely that the T-Pads would be the only target and pending MiLB and MLB approval they would be moved to El Paso for the 2013 season. We will find out on Tuesday after the El Paso council votes, but if passed it would all but assure that the Padres AAA affiliate would be on the move again for the 2nd time in 3 years. Might also explain why the T-Pads have added almost no merchandise to their team store this year and even have their home caps on clearance.

http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_20908609/new-stadium-baseball-team-could-be-headed-downtown?source=rss&_requestid=1715719