Padres General Manager Kevin Towers paid Jake Peavy like an ace after the homegrown right-hander won the NL’s Cy Young award in 2007.
At least he intended to pay him … until circumstances (ownership’s messy divorce, losses piling up on the field) forced Towers to trade Peavy on this date — July 31 — in 2009.
At the time of the trade, the Padres were unloading more than $55 million in salary obligations, essentially every cent of the $52 million the extension guaranteed Peavy from 2010 through 2012.
The Padres received young pitchers Clayton Richard, Aaron Poreda, Adam Russell and Dexter Carter, essentially the same trade the two teams worked out in May before Peavy vetoed it.