I just thought I'd give my rambling thoughts on the discussions happening in the diaries on Jake Peavy. Personally, I don't think pitchers are worth it. Jake has a lot of heart and a lot of talent, but if there's two things that we know about him:
- He doesn't know when to keep his mouth shut. (See "Get me a real cop" incident)
- He doesn't know when to speak up and say something. (See incidents: "I don't have a broken rib" and "My eyes see just fine")
To me, this stinks of a prelude to what happened with Adam Eaton. See, when baseball players want "fair market price", they actually mean that they want $14+ million a year. That's what that means. Don't forget that there was a time when Padres fans saw Peavy and Eaton as being the "Two Aces" of the future. As soon as Eaton saw that the wheels were coming off, he started demanding "fair market price" and was quickly left with his ass kicked to the curb to see if "fair market price" would be paid by some other sucker.
The way I figure it, Jake Peavy is valuable in two ways. The first being how much he contributes to the team's winning. The second being how enjoyable he is to watch. To the Padres upper managemet, both of those things will eventually equate to a certain amount of money, either through ticket sales, merchandise or sponsorship. The way I also see it, the Padres aren't in the business of making stupid moves because San Diego fans aren't in the business of just showing up to games no matter what happens.
The Padres will have to decide how much Jake's worth soon. Santana will be making about 25% of the Twins total payroll with his new deal. To me, for a player to be worth that, he has to be responsible for either 25% of the teams total wins, or 25% of the team's total draw at the gates. Now, since a starter only pitches once every five days and the Padres average a little over 30k a game, by my calculations, Peavy has to draw about 38k fans to each of his starts. Doing a quick analysis (I'll try and do a more proper one a little later), whether or not Jake starts has a very minor effect on whether or not people show up to the park. Remember Dontrelle Willis a couple years ago? That's not what's happening here.
As far as wins go, the Padres are currently on pace for 90. Let's pretend that they actually get to 92. I know that I've said that wins aren't any way to measure a pitcher, but will Jake have pitched well enough that he's the equivalent of 23 wins this season?
If I were to keep my crazy baseball blogger hat on and kinda take a glance at my Sports MBA hat, I'd place Jake's value to the Padres at $11.74 million. That's the very most I can see the Padres dishing out for him. If he wants to help out his cause, he needs to become more famous. There's a fascinating cycle that goes on. Why is Greg Maddux the highest paid Padre? Is it because of his current skills? Hardly. It's because he can affect a certain amount of wins and he gets people to show up at the gate.
If Padres fans really want Jake in 2010 then it's on us to do something. I guarantee you that if Jake manages to sell out a Tuesday night game, he'll see the money that he wants. Until then, I really want people to quit distracting him with this petty crap. We've got a postseason to go after.