SAN DIEGO -- Jeff Moorad resigned as the Arizona Diamondbacks' CEO on Friday to pursue a potential acquisition of the Padres from majority owner John Moores.

Moorad told The Associated Press he has an agreement in principle to buy the franchise from Moores, who last month confirmed he hired Goldman Sachs to facilitate a sale for "all/some/none" of the club. Moorad also said he is leading a "small but significant" group of investors that Moores confirmed via e-mail has "an exclusive right to negotiate for the Padres." Moores, however, did not confirm an agreement was in place to sell the team.

"We have a lot of work to do," Moorad said on a conference call, "but John and Becky and the folks at Goldman Sachs have been very attentive and focused, as I intend to be over the next month or so. I'm hopeful that we can get to the finish line."

Diamondbacks managing general partner Ken Kendrick told AP that Moorad, who is one of four Diamondbacks owners, will keep his share of the team unless his attempt to buy the Padres is successful. According to Kendrick, the portion of the Diamondbacks that Moorad owns "is not an insignificant amount." A resident of Newport Beach, Moorad was forced by Major League Baseball to resign from his position as CEO once he put together a development group to purchase the Padres, Kendrick said.

Moorad and the Padres said they hope to get the sale completed within the first quarter of 2009, an estimate one baseball source said might be a little "optimistic."

"Baseball moves along at a glacial pace," the source said, pointing to the much more complicated sale of the Chicago Cubs, who were put up for sale in April 2007. That franchise was supposed to announce a new ownership group by Thanksgiving and again by Christmas, but the Tribune Co. has delayed any announcements.

But Moores' and Moorad's good standing with baseball's owners and commissioner Bud Selig could help expedite the transaction, especially considering that Moores put the team up for sale because he is in the midst of a messy divorce from his wife of 44 years, Becky. Because California is a community property state, Becky owns 50 percent of the couple's stake in the club.

Moores, who owns 90 percent of the Padres, originally purchased 80 percent of the club for $80 million from Tom Werner's group in 1994. Nearly overnight, he and CEO Larry Lucchino changed the team's business model and helped shed the Padres' image as a perennial laughingstock. During Moores' tenure, the Padres reached the postseason four times, including their 1998 World Series run, and the club partially financed its move from Qualcomm Stadium to Petco Park. Moores also has seen eye-to-eye with Selig on critical issues over the years, publicly backing the commissioner in attempts to keep player salaries from escalating to exorbitant amounts.

Moorad, a former player agent, has made an equally good impression on baseball's owners since he and his partners purchased the Diamondbacks for $238 million in 2004. When Moorad made the switch, some owners were skeptical about Moorad's intentions, fearing what a player agent would do from within. But it hasn't taken long for those fears to be quieted, one insider said.

"Jeff has established a pretty good track record," the source said. "He's won the confidence of other owners."

Moorad said he would be the majority owner, and that he first spoke with Moores about a potential purchase after rumors of a Padres sale surfaced in October.

"I told (Moores) that I was very happy in Arizona, that I was very excited about the organization that the Diamondbacks had become," Moorad said on the conference call, "and that the only thing that would turn my head would be the possibility of returning to California, particularly Southern California."

Moorad also said the Mooreses would continue to own a portion of the team for an undetermined number of years. Jennifer Moores, the couple's daughter, and San Diego businessman Glenn Doshay each own 5 percent of the Padres.

Though the Padres are coming off their worst season -- a 99-loss bruiser -- since Petco Park opened in 2004, a new owner might benefit from the franchise's current state, according to one expert. The club's payroll for 2009 will be about $40 million, down from $73.6 million in 2008. The team also has few significant long-term contracts on the books, the costliest being Jake Peavy's market-friendly $63 million deal over the next five seasons.

Since Sandy Alderson took over as Padres CEO in 2005, the club has made significant strides to improve the farm system in an attempt to fill the roster with inexpensive players to combat the rising costs of free agents. That includes the opening of an $8 million state-of-the-art player training facility in the Dominican Republic last May. In July, the Padres spent a club-record $3.2 million on international athletes from the Dominican Republic, Venezuela and Australia in an attempt to beef up what has been a previously untapped player development market.

"You're not committed to losing money in the next two years," said Raymond Sauer, an economics professor and chair of the John E. Walker Economics Department at Clemson University who moderates the Web site thesportseconomist.com. "It allows someone to purchase an option on the good times returning without having to bleed money. A leaner operation is what everyone wants. If you're already in that situation, the new owner doesn't have to slash and burn."