The votes are in, and former Padre Jason Bay has won the NL ROY Award. I think the writers got bailed out to a certain degree by the fact that there were two very worthy candidates this year. The fact that Bay won it so convincingly over Khalil Greene suggests that the writers still don’t quite get it. This should have been an extremely close race.

No matter. It’s still pretty cool that the Pads had two of the top three vote getters (Aki Otsuka finished third), while the third netted them Brian Giles. With those three guys and the likes of Sean Burroughs, Adam Eaton, Brian Lawrence, and Jake Peavy (and Ollie Perez), this has been a very productive farm system over the past 4-5 years.

Anyway, congrats to Bay. Good to see him (and Perez) get a chance to shine in Pittsburgh. Greene, not surprisingly, took the news in stride.

And in the other big news of the day, the Padres found a taker for Terrence Long. He and former top prospect Dennis Tankersley have been shipped to Kansas City for LHP Darrell May and RHP Ryan Bukvich.

I’m a little torn on this one. On the one hand, the Padres got rid of a $4.7M backup corner outfielder. Long actually had a halfway decent season in 2004, but with similar (or better) players available for a fraction of the cost, he won’t be missed one bit. Long’s spot can easily be replaced from without (Jack Cust?) or from within (Jon Knott?).

On the other hand, May has a 4.98 ERA in nearly 600 career innings. He’s coming off a 5.61 ERA season. Opponents hit him to the tune of .306/.351/.555 last year. In looking for positives I see that he had a 3.50 ERA in five July starts. Decent SO/BB ratio (120/55). Didn’t lose 20 games.

Bukvich? Who knows. Has a 6.54 ERA in 42 2/3 big-league innings. Averages 7.38 walks per 9 innings in his career. Presumably he’ll compete for a spot at the back end of the bullpen. Hey, somebody has to fill Ricky Stone’s shoes.

I think the one intriguing guy in all this is Tankersley. It became pretty evident when the Padres sent him back to Triple-A after he’d pitched well in Ismael Valdez’ spot in June that Tank didn’t have much of a future in San Diego. He’s still young enough and talented enough that he could make an impact, although it may be in a Jay Witasick kind of way.

Fiscal impact? Long was slated to make $4.7M, May gets $3.2M. I’m assuming the other two are making close to MLB minimum and are a wash. According to ESPN the Pads also sent about $1M to the Royals. Basically San Diego traded a mediocre outfielder for a mediocre pitcher, swapped a couple of relatively unknown arms, and cleared $500k. Pretty exciting, huh? The Transaction Oracle sure thinks so. He also thinks the two pitchers coming to San Diego will post sub-5.00 ERAs next year.

Oh, and the other thing this deal does is totally screw up my speculation about what moves the Pads might make this off-season. But I like the fact that my thought process wasn’t too far off. I was thinking of another mediocre 32-year-old southpaw in John Halama. Basically May is the same pitcher only not quite as good and not quite as cheap. Then again, signing Halama wouldn’t have gotten rid of Long.

Isn’t it fascinating the way these things work?