San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
John Shea: The San Diego Padres are banking on Manny Machado to lead a turnaround.
PEORIA, Ariz. — Pitcher Jonathan Sanchez hit an improbable triple off Mat Latos in the final regular-season game in 2010, and the Giants and Padres began immediate journeys down opposite paths.
The Giants clinched a division title that day, finishing two games ahead of San Diego, and went on to win their first of three World Series. The Padres sank into oblivion and irrelevance, and we haven’t heard from them since.
At least on the field.
The Giants won their last World Series in 2014, but it was the Padres who supposedly “won the offseason” afterward by trading for Matt Kemp, Justin Upton and Craig Kimbrel and signing James Shields. Well, not quite. They finished fourth in 2015, and all those guys were gone within a year.
The Padres are making noise again, but this time they’re anticipating far different results. Their $300 million commitment to Manny Machado, a record deal announced Thursday, makes them a team on the rise, a team destined for better days.
By adding Machado (without losing prospects), the Padres did more to upgrade with a single move than did any other NL West team over the entire offseason.
Machado is 26 and joining the club with baseball’s best farm system. The Padres still might not jump far from the cellar this year, if at all, but figure to be scary in 2020 or, at the latest, 2021.
Good for the Padres. San Diego deserves a winner. No major sports team has won a championship in this town, unless we’re counting the Chargers’ 1963 title in the old AFL, and fans are desperate for an organization with a pulse. It’s suddenly a one-sport town after the Chargers fled to Los Angeles because a misguided owner, Dean Spanos, failed to make it work in San Diego.
Nothing new. I was a sportswriter in San Diego when the Clippers bolted for L.A., and an even more pathetic owner, Donald Sterling, loused that up. These were the Clippers of Terry Cummings, Tom Chambers, World B. Free, Bill Walton and Norm Nixon, and Sterling did zilch to succeed.
In the same era, the Chargers featured Dan Fouts, Charlie Joiner, Kellen Winslow and one of the most explosive offenses in NFL history. The Padres, meanwhile, were slowly building a World Series team and found Steve Garvey, Graig Nettles and Rich Gossage to complement the great Tony Gwynn.
That’s all a distant memory, and the only game left is baseball, but the Padres haven’t posted a winning record since the year the Giants eliminated them on the final day.
Machado, who’ll play third base, won’t turn around the franchise overnight, but he’ll combine with first baseman Eric Hosmer as bookends in what promises to be a must-see double-play combination.
Shortstop Fernando Tatis Jr., perhaps the top prospect in the land, will be called up during the season and complement Luis Urias at second. Francisco Mejia might be the game’s top catching prospect.
More prized prospects are on the horizon, and it won’t hurt the Padres to have the sixth overall pick in the June draft.
Could this blow up like the team in 2015? Absolutely. The success rate of nine-digit contracts is awful, and Machado didn’t exactly show he was a good teammate in the postseason with his dirty antics and lack of hustle, but he did say at Friday’s news conference, “I’m a winner. I’m a gamer.”
We’ll see. Not only will Machado be asked to ignite the Padres, he’ll also be asked to lead them, especially the young guys, and he has not been a leader. But the Padres and the town are due for something special, and before a championship is possible, hope is necessary. For now, there is some.
Around the majors
For all we hear that Bryce Harper was the top free agent this winter, it’s easy to see why some teams preferred the other 26-year-old, Machado. He’s more consistent. He’s more durable. He’s a better defender. He plays a more premium position. At his best, yes, Harper is a superior hitter. His 2015 season (.330, 42 homers, 1.109 OPS) was historically good, but he hit .249 last year and led the league in strikeouts. Machado has five years of 156-plus games (Harper played that many once) and slugged between 33 and 37 homers each of the past four years. Who has the better upside? That’s the better question, and the contract Harper receives, in comparison with Machado’s, will provide a good indication of the outfielder’s projections, at least through the eyes of his new team.
If in fact Harper’s final two choices are the Giants and Phillies, and if the Giants aren’t offering 10 years, and if he’d prefer not to play in Philly, what does he do? He takes the bigger contract because that’s what elite free agents are encouraged to do by their representatives and the players’ union. Harper doesn’t hit well in China Basin. The Giants aren’t expected to contend the next couple of years. No one knows who the manager will be in 2020. It doesn’t make sense for him in so many ways, but on the other hand, if a kid from Las Vegas can choose where he’ll spend the next 10 years, San Francisco makes all the sense in the world.
Marwin Gonzalez and Minnesota on Friday agreed on a two-year contract for $21 million, far less than anticipated when the offseason began. The four years for $40 million-plus never materialized. In an era in which versatility is cherished, Gonzalez is one of the most versatile in the business. He’s a switch-hitter and played every position but pitcher and catcher for the Astros last year, but his value took a hit in the slow market. He would seem a perfect fit for the Giants, able to play most of the time in the outfield but spell an infielder here and there. But the Giants are building depth on the cheap and hired a poor man’s Gonzalez, Yangervis Solarte, for $1.75 million.