Padres made "fair" offer to Headley, it wasn't accepted.

Ron Fowler interview with Darren Smith (MP3)

• Fowler thinks the stadium he built at USD will be great for baseball in San Diego. He would like to see the Padres play at there some day.
• Fowler's on his first 6 months as Executive Chairman: "It's been like being on the wrong end of a fire hose in terms of a lot of data coming at you, a lot of information." He enjoys it, there's a lot to learn.
• "I'm hoping we're watching games that mean something in September. So yes, I expect the team to be competitive." He hopes to get another starting pitcher during Spring Training.
  
• The Padres have made a conscience decision to keep the Padres intact from last year.
  
• The value of free agents was much higher than they thought they would be. Byrnes went after a few players but at that cost the players didn't make sense. Fowler won't say which players they went after.
• Fowler thinks they misplayed the market. Increased National Media Money is coming in 2014 and he thinks some teams wanted to spend it early.
• On Yasmani Grandal's PED suspension: "We're very disappointed in Yasmani. We're hoping that he steps up and handles this appropriately with his teammates." "We want him to be candid and come clean. This is a strike one situation. This is one area where as a team we will support him when possible but there won't be three strikes here.
  "I'm concerned as to whether or not we have the full story."
  We will move aggressively if there's another problem." Fowler thinks he hung out with the wrong people. He doesn't think they got the candor they expected from Grandal. "If we've been lied to and things have been misrepresented it's going to give us cause to ponder."
  
• Fowler watched Marver's Padres documentary. "Mr. Carver is a very passionate fan." Fowler hopes Marver represents the minority. "We listen to our fans. We have a lot of people who are paying attention to Facebook. We have a lot of people that follow the bloggers. We love passion." Fowler thinks that some of Marver's information is out of context.
  
• Fowler was not involved in the negotiations with Phil Mickelson. Things just didn't come together to make the investment worthwhile for both parties. Fowler thinks the election results made Phil rethink the entire situation.
• Dave Winfield is an Executive Vice President of the team. He implied that the $800 million price tag for the Padres prohibited the team from spending money this off-season.
  These guys paid $800 million to buy the Padres. You know that always doesn't leave a lot of money to make the moves that you want. -Dave Winfield
  
  "I respectfully disagree with Dave. He is not in the meetings that we have. He is not active in the management team." It did not inhibit them from doing anything. Another member of the organization has talked to Winfield. Fowler would like to believe he won't be making statements like that again.
• GM Josh Byrnes did not strongly recommend any moves. "Ultimately the trigger was not pulled because we felt the price value was not there."
• Fowler thinks it's a fair assessment to look at Chase Headley as a test case for the new ownership. The Padres made an offer to Headley, it was not accepted, but they will continue a dialog. "If Chase wants to be here then hopefully we'll get something done." "We made an offer that would make him - we think it was a really fair offer." The Padres still have 2 years to get something done.
• Fowler is going to have a face to face meeting in the next week with Time Warner Cable to see if they can get the situation resolved. He thinks TWC has been disingenuous when they pay billions for the Dodgers and not accept the market rate for the Padres. He won't say he's optimistic or pessimistic.