| | DANA POINT, Calif. -- Andy Ashby, a two-time All-Star who resurrected his career in San Diego, was traded to the Philadelphia
Phillies on Wednesday night for three pitchers in a cost-cutting move by the Padres, as first reported by ESPN's Peter Gammons.
The Padres received right-handers Carlton Loewer, Steve Montgomery and prospect Adam Eaton for Ashby. The deal was announced at the general managers' meetings.
|  | | Andy Ashby went 14-10 with a 3.80 ERA for the Padres in 1999. |
Ashby has veto power over the trade, but said he would likely
accept the deal.
"You hate to leave somewhere where you've been so long and what
we've been through there," Ashby said from his home in Pittston,
Pa. "But I knew it was going to happen.
"It's going to be nice, I hope," he said. "I want to go back and definitely help them go where they want to go and help them win."
The 32-year-old right-hander began his career in the Phillies
organization in 1986. He went 2-8 with the big league club in
1991-92 and was taken by Colorado in the 1992 expansion draft.
"This is a homecoming for Andy Ashby," Phillies GM Ed Wade
said. "We let him get by in the expansion draft, and obviously it
turned out to be a mistake on our part."
After going 0-4 with an 8.50 ERA with the Rockies in 1993, Ashby
was acquired as the player to be named in the final move of the
Padres' Fire Sale, coming over with catcher Brad Ausmus and pitcher Doug Bochtler for pitchers Bruce Hurst and Greg Harris.
Ashby went 70-62 with the Padres, but is still under .500 for his career at 72-74. He was 17-9 with a 3.34 ERA as the Padres reached the World Series in 1998, then went 14-10 with a 3.80 in 1999.
Wade said he had to include Eaton to get the deal done.
"To add Andy Ashby to a staff that includes Curt Schilling, Paul Byrd, Robert Person and a young guy like Randy Wolf certainly
validates what we're trying to do," Wade said.
Ashby regained his spot as the staff ace when Kevin Brown left as a free agent for the rival Los Angeles Dodgers. He led the
Padres with 14 victories and four complete games.
Padres general manager Kevin Towers has been intent on trading
Ashby, due to make $5.9 million in 2000, the final year of his
contract.
"The thing that concerned us is we would only have Ash for a
year," Towers said. "The question was, do we trade him now or
wait until the deadline? We got three pitchers we control for (a
total of) 14 years. They're three arms that can throw in the 90s.
It made sense."
The Padres say they need to make substantial payroll cuts, and feared that Ashby could seek as much as $8 million per season in his next contract.
San Diego had a $48 million payroll last year, when it fell from defending NL champion to fourth place in the NL West. Counting Ashby, the Padres were already on the hook for $47.3 million in
salaries for 14 players next year.
"It's hard. I'm not on the book side of it," Ashby said. "I
know they got the new stadium and are building for that, but they
ran into a situation where they had to cut some payroll and I
happen to fall into that category."
Loewer, a 26-year-old right-hander, was 2-6 with a 5.12 ERA in
20 games, 13 of them starts. The Phillies' top pick in the June
1994 draft missed nearly four months because of a stress fracture
in his right humerus bone.
Towers said the scouting reports the Padres had showed Loewer is
healthy, and he'll probably come to San Diego for a physical in the
next two weeks.
Montgomery, 28, was 1-5 with three saves and a 3.34 ERA. The
righty made 53 relief appearances.
Eaton, 22 later this month, played at Class A Clearwater,
Double-A Reading and Triple-A Scranton and was a combined 11-10.
The right-hander was Philadelphia's No. 1 pick in the 1996 draft.
Eaton was honored this season as the Phillies' top minor league
pitcher. He was in the dugout at Scottsdale Stadium, playing for
the Peoria team in the Arizona Fall League, when the trade was
made.
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