Cubs, Padres have but a few days to get deal done

LAS VEGAS - There couldn't have been a starker contrast.

In one corner of the media room was San Diego Padres general manager Kevin Towers talking about the never-ending trade speculation involving Padres pitcher Jake Peavy and the Cubs.

In other sections of the massive Bellagio complex, Cubs GM Jim Hendry was saying, well, not a whole lot.

This much came to light Monday:

While Towers did not come out and set a deadline for a deal to be done, he did say there would have to be additional progress by the end of the winter meetings Thursday or that he'd have to call things off.

Shedding further light on the subject, Towers said the only place Peavy would land other than San Diego would be the North Side of Chicago.

"If we weren't to have made any progress in the next three or four days, as I said earlier, I think that's the time where we need to come out and make some sort of statement that he's going to stay with us," Towers said.

While the talks have been characterized in various media as "on life support," "on again" or "off again," Towers simply termed them "ongoing."

He did say the Padres could use young pitching, and that's perhaps why he reiterated that an additional team probably will have to get involved to make a Peavy-to-the-Cubs deal happen.

For his part, Hendry did say he had no plans again Monday night to sit down with Towers. The teams have talked for weeks as it is.

"I would be foolish to put any date this week on acquiring any player," Hendry said. "Our goal is to get the best players for the Cubs before we get to camp. We've signed players on Christmas Eve before and made trades Feb. 6 that have helped the club. We signed Greg Maddux on the day we went to camp in '04."

Things are complicated for the Cubs because Hendry's first priority continues to be acquiring a left-handed hitting outfielder. That will cost money, as will Peavy (and the Cubs are in an ownership transition).

Before the winter meetings started, Hendry said the Cubs could get creative with moving money around. It's no secret the Cubs would like to trade starting pitcher Jason Marquis and his $9.875 million salary for 2009.

But Hendry would not rule out making a big trade before he acquires the bat, which could be Raul Ibanez, Bobby Abreu or Milton Bradley, who probably would be the least costly among these three.

"I would never say never because we have other ways to maybe adjust the payroll and make something fit that might not look that way from the outside," Hendry said.

"We're not opposed to feeling we're capable of doing a small deal or a big deal. We like to think we can find ways to make it work."

In other words, the Cubs still can trade for Peavy first and then do some fancy footwork on getting a left-handed batter.

"We've had a lot of good conversations and meetings, not only internally, but we've had some dealings with some clubs and met with a few agents on free agents," Hendry said. "It's kind of one of those years where, in volume, there's more left-handed hitters available, possibly, than there have been the last three or four years.

"We always seem to get into a spot where we're a left-handed hitter short. Some of that's been my own inefficiencies to acquire more left-handed help the last few years.

"It's really hard to predict. We'll do what we always do. We'll try to wait for what we think is the right deal and react as fast as we can to that."

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