He’d be an outfielder in the same way Duncan and ManRam are — terrible to the point that it severely drags down their value as a player.

I’m struggling to find the logic in that reasoning as well.

MLB should have warranties for pitchers traded. If elbow fails within 2 years, full refund.

Rasmus doesn’t replace Ankiel in the lineup, as Peavy would Pineiro. That’s a false comparison. He’d replace Skip. Now, if Ankiel is traded, then Ankiel is replaced by Rasmus + whatever Ankiel yields — hopefully a young pitcher to fill the #5 spot or a young SS.

Second, you seem to only be looking at the Rasmus/Ankiel comparison next year. Do you really expect Ankiel and Rasmus to share the same value over the next 6 years — as Ankiel reaches into his mid-30s and Rasmus enters his prime? So, even if we go w/ the Ankiel/Rasmus comparison, it doesn’t apply for the length of Rasmus’ cost-controlled years.

Third, Ankiel’s a free agent after next year so I’d say it’s 50-50 at best that he remains a Cardinal after next year. Would you trade 1 year of Ankiel for 6 years of Rasmus? I would in a heartbeat.

Finally, about Peavy. There’s no doubt he is one of the best pitchers in the game. However, he has only 1 time in his career been so much as an 8 win player — much less 8 wins above Pineiro. If we assume that Pineiro is a replacement-level player, Peavy’s best season so far had him 6 wins above bench (replacement). The best pitcher in baseball this year by win shares, Tim Lincecum (according to THT), was a 9-win pitcher — 7.3 above bench. Even if we’re willing to concede that Peavy will be the absolute best pitcher in baseball every year for the next 3-4 years, a dubious proposition, it would be nearly impossible for him to be 8 wins better than Pineiro, Todd, Boggs or whoever we would otherwise use in the 5 spot in the rotation.

Doing the math, I agree that Peavy isn’t 8 wins better than pineiro, as was stated above, and that he’s not even 8 wins above replacement. Over 178 IP, 8 wins worse than a 2.85 ERA would be about a 6.5 ERA. IMO that is too low for “replacement level” to be set at. The question remains, though, what exactly “replacement level” should be. 5.5? 6?

Peavy was 33 runs better than the average MLB starting pitcher (4.44 ERA). That is just under 4 wins above average. He was 45.6 runs (5 wins) better than pineiro’s (or thompson’s) 5.15 ERA, assuming pineiro/pk wouldn’t have been much worse if forced to pitch 178 innings. And he was 90.2 runs (10 wins) better than Boggs would have been, due to the inflated 7.41 ERA. Yeesh.

As I was about to say, I am definitely not of the camp that wants to acquire a sexy pitcher whatever the cost on the assumption that automatically makes us a title contender. Before your argument has any merit to me, I would need to be satisfied that there is not a good pitcher available via free agent or trade that is a better value.

For this trade to make sense at all we would have to have very strong reason to believe that Peavy’s next four years would be equal to his 2005-2007 seasons. His 2008 has significant warning signs to me that have been stated elsewhere in this thread. Anything less than perennial Cy Young top three is not worth $60M plus Rasmus plus multiple other prospects unless the Padres would take some marginal ones.

FWIW, your point #2 is not valid as Peavy has never averaged 7IP per start in his career and only averaged 6.43 IP in 2008. One out per start over the guys you are comparing him to is hardly signficant. I thnk the lack of validity to point number two puts your assertion that he is a bona fide number 1 starter in doubt. One of the main criteria is that a #1 needs to go deep in games. Peavy has 6 CGs in 199 career starts and doesn’t go significantly deeper into games than any Cardinal starter in 2008 except Pineiro.

I would still like to know why the Padres would be interested in moving Peavy if they believe he is sound.