Peavy "Hates" New York

Even though the Boston Herald reported today the San Diego Padres have identified four AL teams as potential trading partners for Jake Peavy (the Yankees, Red Sox, Angels and Rangers), it looks like the Yankees will not be in the running for Jake Peavy after all.

From Ken Davidoff:

It appears increasingly likely that the Padres will trade Jake Peavy. But neither the Yankees nor the Mets rank among the favorites to land the 2007 National League Cy Young Award winner.

"Jake strongly prefers the National League, and it would take major enticement to get him to agree to go to any American League club," Axelrod e-mailed. "He has obviously had a lot of success in the NL and feels very comfortable there. Also, he is a pretty good hitter, and he views that as an advantage.

"We have not been approached on any specific team, but have given the Padres an idea of the teams to which Jake would consider going. They are definitely being proactive on this and seem to really want to make it happen."

The Padres think they could find a match with the Yankees in a Peavy trade, but Peavy's de facto exclusion of the AL takes the Yankees out of the equation, focusing them on free-agent targets such as CC Sabathia, A.J. Burnett and Derek Lowe as they attempt to improve their rotation.

The Mets aren't a safe bet because a) they probably lack the young talent necessary, and b) one official from another team said this past week that Peavy, who was born and still lives in Alabama, "hates" New York anyway.

I don't want the Yankees to trade for him anyway, they'll most likely get ripped-off in the process. And to give up that much for someone who doesn't want to be here is never a good idea. So to me, this is good news.