The MLBPA acknowledges that teams in several of baseball\u2019s smaller markets have no realistic chance of getting to the World Series. But rather than a systemic issue, the union frames it as a problem with certain owners. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe believe that every team starting the year has the wherewithal to be the last team standing,\u201d Tony Clark, the MLBPA\u2019s executive director for the last 13 years, said in an interview shortly before he resigned in February. \u201cBut in part because of how well the industry is doing, a handful of teams aren\u2019t as interested in that.\u201d <\/p>\n
For years, the Padres were among them. The team was a perennial loser with a diminishing fan base when Ron Fowler and the Seidler and O\u2019Malley families bought it for $800 million in 2012. It was the equivalent of a teardown, one of the worst houses on the block. But in 2018, the owners began to spend \u2014 at a level that, as Clark\u2019s replacement Bruce Meyer points out, would probably not be allowed under a salary cap. The payroll jumped from $68.5 million in 2017 to $157 million in 2020 and $255 million in 2023.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you invest in the product on the field, you\u2019re going to get everything back from it and more,\u201d Manny Machado, who signed a 10-year, $300 million contract with the Padres in 2019, says now. \u201cInvest in your players, invest in your product and you\u2019ll get winning and fans in the stands.\u201d<\/p>\n
The owners\u2019 sudden commitment changed the way the team felt about itself, and the way San Diego felt about it. In 2020, the Padres made the playoffs for the first time since 2006. In 2022, they played the Phillies for the National League pennant. Last year, they drew more fans than the Yankees, Mets, Red Sox, Braves or Cubs \u2014 more than any other team in MLB, in fact, except the Dodgers. \u201cThe Padres are the perfect blueprint,\u201d pitcher Nick Pivetta said. \u201cAnd it didn\u2019t seem to take that much, just one guy who was really passionate and involved. \u2018Let\u2019s just try to win games and bring in good players.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Peter Seidler, the lead owner, died in 2023. To avoid a rancorous legal battle, the ownership group last month sold the Padres to Jos\u00e9 E. Feliciano and his wife, Kwanza Jones, for $3.9 billion, or five times what Seidler and his partners paid 14 years ago. As a data point that the existing system works for the owners, it\u2019s a persuasive one. While it is surely beyond their financial wherewithal for most teams to spend like the Dodgers, the union makes the case that any of them could conceivably become the Padres. <\/p>\n
Except that, for everything they\u2019ve accomplished during their revival, they still haven\u2019t won a World Series, or even played in one. And to many fans, the owners well understand, nothing else matters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The MLBPA acknowledges that teams in several of baseball\u2019s smaller markets have no realistic chance of getting to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":468026,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[3493,1334,76558,2674,44043,147751,9739,74,76,75],"class_list":["post-468025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-manny-machado","tag-mlb","tag-mlbpa","tag-padres","tag-petco-park","tag-portfolio","tag-print","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=468025"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468025\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/468026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=468025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=468025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=468025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}