Al Bethke of Al's Ramblings is reporting the Phillies offered the Brewers Vicente Padilla in return for Scott Podsednik, however, he does not cite his source. Bethke goes on to say that the Brewers turned down the deal because Padilla will likely be too expensive for the Brewers budget after arbitration.
Reading the tea leaves between the lines, several possibilities come to mind if this is true:
1. The Phillies do not believe Padilla will ever reach his potential on a consistent basis.
2. The Phillies had a plan to trade Padilla for a centerfielder (a small deficiency), and then use the savings towards a top of the line starter (a large deficiency), such as Pavano.
3. Other players were involved that we don't know about.
Without these possibilities, the deal just doesn't make sense. In terms of overall value to a team, Padilla had a -3 RSAA* in 2004, while Podsednik had a -20 RCAA*. And if there are no other details, or possibilities, or plans behind the scenes that we don't know about, then Ed Wade is starting to make me look really bad for sticking up for him all the time all over the internet.
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* Runs Saved Above Average and Runs Created Above Average are stats created by Lee Sinins, author of the daily "Around the Majors" daily email and column on The Hardball Times. The stats express the number of runs a player would save or create for his team in comparison the average player with the same amount of playing time, normalized for park factors.
