No team has plummeted into the abyss as quickly and as shockingly as the San Diego Padres, who have gone from contending for three consecutive seasons (including back-to-back NL West titles in 2005 and 2006) to dueling with the Washington Generals, er, Nationals, for the title of baseball's worst team in 2008.

The '08 Padres have been sabotaged by poor personnel decisions, underperforming players, injuries, a string of disastrous drafts and, most noticeably, a change in philosophy as general manager Kevin Towers' autonomy has eroded with CEO Sandy Alderson and special assistant Paul DePodesta taking more control of baseball decisions.

It's a long season for Greg Maddux and the Padres. (Getty Images)

Owner John Moores and soon-to-be-ex-wife Becky are locked in an ugly divorce, and there are strong indications that the player payroll -- $73 million this season -- will be chopped significantly in '09.

That might all be related to the divorce. It almost certainly is related to the fact that the Padres' attendance in this, only the fifth season of Petco Park, is down 12 percent from last year.

The Padres intended to trade both outfielder Brian Giles and pitcher Greg Maddux in what sources say would have been pure salary-dump deals with no significant talent coming back. Maddux would have only accepted a deal to the Dodgers, whom the Padres spoke to, but the clubs could not agree on the finances. Giles, also with no-trade powers, vetoed a deal to Boston.

Meanwhile, in another curious (to say the least) development, Padres officials had told Giles that they expected to pick up his $9 million option for next year. But during the chain of events that led to the aborted deal with the Red Sox last week, Giles was told that the club picking up the option was no longer a sure thing.

How the Moores divorce proceedings play out bears close watching. California is a community property state -- meaning, the spouses get a 50/50 split of the couple's assets, and the messier and more expensive it gets, the more the baseball club could stand to take a beating, short of a sale. There is no pre-nuptial agreement -- and even if there were, they were married in 1963, long before the Padres came into the picture.

Sources close to the club say each of the Moores wants to keep the Padres, a competition that should be more riveting than anything that happens to an overmatched club on the field in the near future. Example: According to court documents, John agreed to give Becky exclusive use of the managing partner's Petco Park box in April, May, June and July this summer -- but the couple has fought over use of the box since.

Becky has retained a divorce attorney known to be exceptionally litigious, while John is employing high-powered lawyer Robert Nachshin, who has represented, among others, Barry Bonds and Gary Sheffield, boxer Oscar De La Hoya, Disney CEO Robert Igor and rapper Snoop Dogg.

Banished from the owner's box for the first four months of '08, John Moores mostly has been an absentee owner this season, handing Alderson the keys to the car -- which has quickly fallen into disrepair.

With not much on the way from the farm system and an impending payroll deduction, no quick fixes are in sight. One NL executive this week said, "The only thing it appears they can do is to either overpay for a couple of big (free agents), or trade Jake Peavy for a bunch of prospects. What else can they do?"

Overpaying -- or even paying market value -- for free agents is almost certainly out of the question under Moores, because once he parlayed the success of the Kevin Brown-Ken Caminiti-Tony Gwynn '98 Padres into inducing San Diegans to vote for a new ballpark, he never has spent as much as promised.

As for dealing their '07 Cy Young winner, Peavy, like Maddux and Giles, has the hammer. He has a full no-trade clause through 2010.

Question is, would he approve a trade?

"I want to win here," Peavy told CBSSports.com this week. "Obviously, that's why I signed the contract to stay with the San Diego Padres for the next five years. This is the only thing I've known. I'm a San Diego Padre at heart.

"It's deeply frustrating when this team doesn't live up to expectations, or is not given a chance to compete."

In the clubhouse, the hope of some of the club's veterans is that those making the decisions realize how badly they've bungled things in this disastrous season.

"I certainly think we need to look at the way we see things," Peavy says. "Evaluating whether or not we're going in the right direction."

Says Giles: "I just hope people understand that this is going to be a very inconsistent division for the next two or three years because of the number of young guys every club has and keep it in perspective that two or three pieces might change the whole team."

Meanwhile, the divorce proceeds, its ramifications being watched very closely both by major league officials -- "John always has been very good for the commissioner (Bud Selig)," one of them said recently -- as well as by those within the Padres clubhouse.

"I think everybody is interested to see how things play out," Peavy says. "We certainly wish John and Becky well. Personally, I love both of them dearly. I hate to see this."

• The Padres also will have a sticky situation on their hands this winter with icon Trevor Hoffman, 40, the game's all-time saves leader at 550. Hoffman definitely wants to play again next season. But his contract is up after '08, and given the state of the franchise, it's difficult to see them paying him the $7.5 million he's earning this year.

• Two weeks out, and the controversial Manny Ramirez trade still echoes. The latest: Sources with knowledge of the talks say Florida had agreed to the three-way deal with Boston and Pittsburgh, with the caveat that Ramirez's two option years would go away and he would agree not to stick the Marlins by filing for salary arbitration. That way, as part of the deal, the Marlins would have received two draft picks next June as compensation for losing Ramirez via free agency. But before that deal could go to Manny for his approval (and sources say he would have vetoed it and only accepted a trade to the Dodgers at that point), the commissioner's office is said to have nixed it, telling the Marlins they had to get a player back, not two draft choices.

• Project Runway, the Manny Edition: Not only are the Dodgers expected to begin selling black dreadlocks and blue dreadlocks for the Manny hungry fans this weekend, but they're also selling Mannywood T-shirts. Not bad for a club that isn't even paying him (Boston is).

• CC Sabathia's 7-0 mark in Milwaukee now is the third-longest undefeated streak for a starting pitcher following a midseason trade in the past 90 years, according to baseballreference.com. Doyle Alexander went 9-0 for Detroit in 1987 (the Tigers, remember, paid a high price by sending a young prospect named John Smoltz to Atlanta), Virgil Trucks went 8-0 for the Chicago White Sox in 1953 and Sabathia is 7-0 -- and counting -- heading into Monday's start against Houston in Milwaukee.

• Catcher Jason Kendall has fared so well in Milwaukee this summer that you can expect an encore in 2009 -- and you can lock it in. Kendall's '09 option vested Thursday in San Diego when he made his 110th start of the season. His 110th start guaranteed Kendall $4.25 million from the Brewers in '09, and that kicks up to $4.35 million when he makes his 120th start and $4.6 million when he makes his 130th start.

• Best reaction to that Thursday came from Brewers general manager Doug Melvin who, when someone mentioned that Kendall's '09 option was vesting on Thursday, said, "It is?" No, it's not that Melvin, one of the finest GMs in the game, is clueless. Rather, as he said, he puts all of the contract option information in a drawer at the beginning of the season, leaves it there and tries to forget about it because "I don't want that stuff affecting the decisions we need to make."

• Melvin on Kendall's value to the Brewers: "Here's a guy who, last year, threw out about 10 percent of opposing base-runners and now he's at 40 percent. A lot of people said, 'Why are you guys signing a guy who can't throw anybody out?' But we wanted someone who could work well with our pitchers."

• More Melvin on Kendall: "I see him in our coaches' room all the time, hanging out. I tell him, 'You're not a coach, yet.' He loves the game. He's a solid baseball guy. Old-school. You're going to have to rip the uniform off of this guy."

• The Brewers, leading the NL wild-card chase, have been without left fielder Ryan Braun (lower back) all week but still don't expect to place him on the disabled list. Braun took some swings off of a tee Thursday and the hope is he'll play toward the end of this weekend's series in Dodger Stadium or when next week's homestand begins against Houston.

• So far, no indication that Braun's back issues are related to his filming an internet commercial last week in Wisconsin with supermodel Marisa Miller. And I find this stunning for clubhouse decorum, but infielder Craig Counsell said that the Brewers hadn't even teased Braun yet about the possibility. Though the look on his face when I asked suggested that maybe the teasing isn't that far off.

• With outfielder Carl Crawford (hand) out for the season and rookie sensation Evan Longoria (wrist) out until at least Sept. 1, Tampa Bay, if it even goes .500 the rest of the season, will finish 94-68. In the wild-card era, no AL team with 94 wins has ever failed to make the playoffs. The high-water mark for those who have been shut out has been the 2005 Cleveland Indians and 2003 Seattle Mariners, each of whom won 93 games but sat home in October.

• Manager Joe Maddon's current plans: With Crawford out, the Rays likely will play Justin Ruggiano in left field and Rocco Baldelli in right -- if he's physically OK -- against left-handers. Against righties, they expect to use Eric Hinske in left and Gabe Gross in right. In Longoria's absence, Willy Aybar likely will get most of the starts at third base.

• Coolest pennant-race-development of the week: Beginning this Monday, selected Tampa Bay games will be broadcast on WAZL-AM in Maddon's hometown of ... Hazleton, Pa. "It's really neat, and when I heard that, it made me smile," Maddon told Tampa Bay reporters. "It's very cool and I know how into us they are right now."

• Alex Rodriguez now has played 162 career games against the Angels -- one full season's worth -- and is hitting .329 (208-for-632) with 61 home runs and 138 RBI. And he's still got one fewer World Series ring than the Angels' organization.

• Quietly, Prince Fielder has abandoned the all-vegetarian diet that garnered so much publicity this spring. Like, here.

• If frozen-out Barry Bonds wants a new agent, maybe he should look here: San Francisco GM Brian Sabean told XM radio this week that "it would be smart" for Tampa Bay to sign Bonds, now that Crawford and Longoria are down.

• Houston GM Ed Wade quickly scotched the idea of signing Bonds after the Astros lost slugger Carlos Lee (broken finger) for the season.

• One scout watching the AL Central race closely says he expects the sprint between the Chicago White Sox and Minnesota to go all the way to the wire: "The White Sox have got some power, the Twins have speed. Both pitching staffs are pretty good. (Third baseman) Joe Crede is down, and that doesn't help them. Chicago's pitching staff is solid, and the bullpen all can throw. Probably, whoever can stay healthy, and whoever can win four or five games in a row, will be the winner."

• Mariners president Chuck Armstrong is telling people that interim GM Lee Pelekoudas definitely will not become the permanent GM but that the organization will retain him in another role. And in the clubhouse, one big league executive says he hears Seattle is "as big a mess as ever" under interim manager Jim Riggleman.

• This isn't the first time Sabathia and Ben Sheets have been teammates. They also played together on the 2000 United States Olympic baseball team in Sydney, Australia. "I liked sitting on the bench with him," Sheets says. "We had good conversations. We'd talk about baseball, food ... anything you can think of."

• Yes, the Los Angeles Angels have all but officially won the AL West, what with that 15-game lead at midweek. No, they will not admit that they're even thinking about the playoffs yet. And yes, that was a reminder manager Mike Scioscia is wearing in the form of a T-shirt these days, replete with the Angels' haloed "A" logo with the phrase "Stay Humble" atop the logo and the Spanish Mantente Humilde below the logo. "There's nobody here looking at the standings," says Scioscia, whose club remains odds-on favorites not only to play in October, but to earn home-field advantage in the AL throughout. "It's too early to look at the standings. There's a time to look at the standings if you want to adjust some things, but that time is not (mid-August)."

• Arizona's sweet-swinging pitcher, Micah Owings , is headed for Cincinnati as one of the two players-to-be-named later in this week's Adam Dunn deal. One problem holding it up: Owings currently is on the disabled list.

• You can voice your opinion on the next voice to be inducted into the broadcaster's wing of the Hall of Fame beginning Monday, Sept. 1, online at baseballhall.org. Fan voting will determine three of the 10 names to be placed on the final ballot that will be announced Oct. 6.

• Prayers for former Cincinnati manager Dave Miley, who's now piloting Scranton/Wilkes Barre, the Yankees' Triple-A affiliate and whose son, Cody, 17, was killed in a car accident in Tampa, Fla., this week. Miley has taken an indefinite leave of absence.