San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
ACTIONS BELIE WORDS
Padres say they want to keep Machado but let deadline pass with one low-ball offer
The Padres have received widespread praise for their prolific spending, creative contracts and daring approach to building what is believed to be a championship contender.
What they are doing with Manny Machado, however, is something new.
If the Padres really want to sign Machado to a contract extension, they have a curious way of showing it. Club officials ignored a deadline Machado set, saying instead that they have all season to get an extension done. They have made one offer to him that would seem to be well below his value.
That doesn’t mean the Padres won’t find a way to keep their de facto captain and biggest producer. They certainly have pulled off some surprises in recent years.
But this is a different situation, and they are taking a different tack.
So as to eliminate any doubt regarding the context, here is the transcript of a conversation with Machado held Saturday morning at his locker. (The exchange was brief, because the clubhouse was about to close to media and because conversations with Machado are over when he says they’re over.)
Q: Manny, is it true that you and your agent gave the Padres a deadline in early December before the winter meetings?
A: “Yes, we did.”
Q: Was that deadline Feb. 16? A: “Absolutely.”
Q: Why Feb. 16? And does the deadline mean that you are done negotiating?
A: “I just wanted to focus on baseball. So once the season started, I didn’t want to really continue talking about contracts or the business side of things. I just want to focus on my team and the guys in here and what our goal is — to win a championship. So (Thursday) was our deadline, and after that it was just focus on baseball, going out there and winning.”
Q: Is it true that the only offer the Padres made was two days
before the deadline?
A: “Yeah.”
Q: And the offer was for five years at $21 million a year, correct?
A: (Smile.) “You can write out whatever you want, honestly. I don’t know how you get this information. But write whatever.”
OK. Thanks.
Manny is most often a man of few words for public consumption.
He is also a man of great conviction regarding his value.
That doesn’t mean the Padres can’t salvage this. It’s not like Machado isn’t going to listen to what they have to say if they present a significant offer. Money almost always decides these situations in the end.
But the Padres have some heavy lifting to do and some perceived slights to mend.
The club preemptively locked up Fernando Tatis Jr. in 2021 and Joe Musgrove in ’22. In December, the Padres went big in trying to land Aaron Judge and Trea Turner before giving Xander Bogaerts an 11-year contract. Earlier this month, they got creative in reworking Yu Darvish’s deal.
Things can change. The path to a deal often is a winding road.
But given the timeline and evidence to date, it is difficult to draw any conclusion other than that the Padres are only slightly interested in keeping Machado. At the least, they are only interested in keeping him on their terms and are willing to risk letting him walk.
“Manny is always a priority,” Padres President of Baseball Operations A.J. Preller said Saturday. “He’s a huge part of our organization. We respect Manny’s process, and we want him to be in a Padres uniform for a long time.”
This is similar to what Preller and Padres Chairman Peter Seidler have said for months. Preller saying it again while using the word “priority” seemed purposeful. The acquisition of Machado stands atop the mountain of moves Preller has made as the team’s general manager, and he wants it known that he values Machado.
However, there is a saying about the volume at which actions speak relative to words. To this point, one of those things is being shouted down. Let’s parse this.
The Padres knew before offering Turner $342 million over 11 years and letting Judge know they were willing to pay him $40 million per year for a decade that Machado intended to exercise the opt-out clause in his contract if he did not get a reworked deal. They also knew it before they signed Bogaerts for $280 million and before they committed $108 million to Darvish over the next six years.
Their prerogative. But in doing so, the team seems to have made its priorities clear.
The Padres waited until Tuesday, two days before Machado’s deadline, to offer an extension to his current deal, which has six years remaining on it. The offer was $105 million for five additional years.
The extension offer amounted to offering Machado an 11-year, $285 million contract. And it would have pushed the Padres’ total commitment to Machado to $405 million over 15 years. They committed $120 million to him from 2019-22, and owe him $180 million more over the next six years. The current deal and proposed extension would pay him $5 million more than the $280 million Bogaerts is making over the next 11 years.
Bogaerts, whose 31st birthday in October will arrive slightly less than three months after Machado’s 31st, is one of the game’s top offensive shortstops and a four-time All-star. But since 2020, Machado ranks fifth in the major leagues in BWAR (15.0) to Bogaerts’ 13th (12.2), ninth in total bases (713) to Bogaerts’ 23rd (617) and 10th in wrc-plus (139) to Bogaerts’ 26th (131). Machado is one of the best all-around third basemen in the game, and a six-time All-star.
By absolutely no means is this to slight Bogaerts. But the coincidence of the value of what was offered to Machado is too rich to ignore.
What is Machado worth?
Given the market, which he has noted is robust for top players, a deal for 10 or 11 years almost certainly has “3” as the first of its nine figures. Machado’s value is almost certainly greater now than it was before the winter meetings. The only way it is less after this season is if Machado does not perform at the level he has for most of his 10 big-league campaigns. Should Machado post another Mvp-caliber season — he was third in NL MVP voting in 2020 and second last year, the only two times in the past 16 years the Padres have made the playoffs — the price will make the Padres wish they could travel back in time.
The Padres can choose which players they want and don’t want. There are bound to be difficult decisions ahead for a team with so many good players.
Bogaerts could slide to third base next year if Machado departs. The Padres could free up money to pursue Shohei Ohtani and/or make their pitch to lock up Juan Soto.
But taking care of significant other business before even making an overture to the player who has carried your club on his shoulders much of the past three years, then making one offer two days before a deadline that was given 21⁄2 months earlier, is just about the opposite of making a real effort to keep the player you say you’re trying to keep.