As malakian points out in the comments to the thread below this one, San Diego has traded Josh Barfield to Cleveland for Kevin Kouzmanoff and Andrew Brown. The article mentions that this move could be a pre-cursor to San Diego making a play to re-unite the Giles brothers and bring Marcus in from Atlanta. If true, these two moves would definitely give San Diego a tremendous leap forward in filling their off-season needs which mainly centered around filling the hole at third as far as position players go, but it looks like they could get an upgrade at second as well.
Update [2006-11-8 15:59:58 by Rox Girl]: What is with these Padres today??? First the big trade, now the news breaks that they've hired Bud Black as manager. Haven't they heard of spacing this stuff out? That's what the Yankees do, anyway.
For what Padres fans think of the deal, check out this thread at Gaslamp Ball.
A Marcus Giles to San Diego possibility had been brought up last week by Ken Rosenthal, who today gave us this Rockies specific piece stating that the team should move Jason Jennings this offseason for a centerfielder or younger starting pitcher, or both. Rosenthal bases the validity of this move on two pivotal assertions:
Trading Jennings would hurt the Rockies' ability to compete in '07, but it's doubtful they could win the NL West even if they kept him.
I can't say for sure if the first part about not being able to afford JJ is true, but the second part might be if the team lags behind the Padres and Dodgers in addressing its needs.