Padres GM expects Jake Peavy trade talks to end by Thursday -- one way or another

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LAS VEGAS -- If the Padres can’t trade Jake Peavy by the end of this week’s winter meetings, General Manager Kevin Towers plans to tell the world he’s keeping his ace.

‘My hope is, by Thursday, we either know there’s a deal to be done,’ Towers said, ‘or ... we’ll make a statement that he’ll be with us.’

The time has come, Towers said, for the Padres to start addressing priorities beyond Peavy. He said the Cubs are the only team with which he is negotiating, with the Cubs working to involve a third team so that more players can be sent to San Diego.

‘We need to get better in San Diego,’ Towers said. ‘Any deal we do would have to involve two or three or four major league-ready prospects.’

Peavy has a no-trade clause, and Towers says he has informed the Padres he would waive it to join the Cubs or the Dodgers. He would not waive it, Towers said, to join the Angels, Yankees or any other American League team.

Towers said he has not spoken with Dodgers GM Ned Colletti about Peavy since last month’s meeting of general managers in Dana Point.

‘I gave Ned an idea of the type of players we’d be focusing on,’ Towers said. ‘It may have scared him off.’

The package probably would have started with Chad Billingsley or Clayton Kershaw, leaving the Dodgers to trade one starter for another and then lose additional young players.

Said Colletti: ‘We would need more very good young players in order to make a match. And we had other things more pressing and prudent in our mind.’

Is that still the case?

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Have you checked our roster lately?’

-- Bill Shaikin