As the Peavy turns

Are they or aren’t they? That seems to be the question surrounding the Jake Peavy trade talks. While yesterday, Peter Gammons claimed that the Yankees were not in the running for Peavy, today, Ken Rosenthal has a conflicting report.

Writes Kenny:

The Yankees’ farm system is strong enough to match up with the Padres if the teams revive their discussions on right-hander Jake Peavy. The Padres, according to one major-league source, told the Yankees that a deal would be possible even if the Yankees declined to offer right-hander Phil Hughes.

The Padres scouted Hughes in a recent Arizona Fall League game, but the Yankees have zero intention of trading him.

There is, of course, one problem. Joel Sherman, the man behind yesterday’s five-year/$80-million A.J. Burnett offer that was shot down before the day was out (Oops. That was George King. The Post writers are all the same to me.), claims that Jake Peavy will not pitch for the Yankees. (If you insist on a link, tough. You know where to find Sherman, and you all should know our position on linking to The Post.)

Now over the last few weeks, we’ve heard a lot of back and forth on Peavy. Some claim he’ll pitch in New York; others say he won’t leave the NL or at least Southern California. Who knows? Certainly not Ken Rosenthal’s or Joel Sherman’s sources with any degree of certainty. If the unnamed folks knew, we wouldn’t be engaged in some investigation into Jake Peavy’s true motives.

What does seem clear, however, is that the Padres are viewing this trade more and more in terms of a salary dump. If the Padres are willing to put it out there that this deal can be consummated without Phil Hughes, they’re signaling that they need to dump Peavy’s contract while losing some negotiating leverage.

In the end, I doubt that this trade will get done or ever come close to completion, but it does provide us an interesting exercise in interpreting unsourced rumors and varying positions. In other words, don’t read too much into anything that isn’t a done deal.