Padres doing just what S.F. fans expected

Dynamic young players. An ownership group funding one of the highest payrolls in the game. Festive vibes at the ballpark.

Exactly what San Francisco Giants fans want. Exactly who the San Diego Padres are. Remember when the Giants used to own the Padres, who were their harmless little brother competing in the same division but rarely posing much of a threat?

Those Padres are all grown up now, flexing their muscles and no longer getting picked on.

They were trending in that direction, and then Tuesday’s trade deadline happened. Suddenly, a promising team became potentially a dominant team, with a third of the lineup and a closer who are new and enormous upgrades. Yeah, manager Bob Melvin made the right call leaving Oakland.

The Padres’ first game with right fielder Juan Soto, first baseman Josh Bell and infielder Brandon Drury — the day after the deadline — was must-see baseball.

Padres fans, hungry for a World Series championship after 53 seasons without one, arrived early at Petco Park and went bonkers all night, from the moment Soto first appeared on the field to stretch all the way through a 9-1 clobbering of Colorado.

One of the biggest deals of MLB trade deadline history sent Soto and Bell from Washington to San Diego, but it was Drury, obtained from the

Reds, who made the biggest immediate impact by hitting the first pitch he saw in Padres pinstripes for a grand slam, the first player in franchise history to hit a slam in his first plate appearance with the team.

While Padres fans were delirious over general manager A.J. Preller’s roster revolution, which also included adding closer Josh Hader, Giants fans were bummed not only because Farhan Zaidi didn’t take much of a stand at the deadline but because their team was on the verge of getting swept by the Dodgers again in a four-game series.

In the end, Zaidi neither significantly bought nor sold. He didn’t acquire Soto or any other hot commodity on the market. He didn’t trade Carlos Rodón, who might have generated prospects and provided fans hope for the future.

Fans called for one or the other and got neither. Zaidi, manager Gabe Kapler and some players were saying, “We’re still in it,” while their actions were saying, “There’s always next year. Or 2024.”

Zaidi dealt two pitchers, Trevor Rosenthal and Matthew Boyd, who were supposed to contribute to the playoff push in September.

Rosenthal went to the Brewers, of all teams, who could vie for the final NL wild-card spot if the Cardinals win the Central.

Instead of adding to the payroll with marquee additions, the payroll dipped further. This is a sore point. It doesn’t align with the Giants’ value ($3.5 billion, fifth highest in MLB, according to Forbes) and revenues, especially with the Mission Rock project quickly surfacing on Lot A.

The payroll is a mere $157.2 million, 13th in the majors, according to Spotrac. The Padres are fifth at $221.1 million. As we often hear with the mistake-prone 2022 Giants, “That just can’t happen.”

It’s not as if Zaidi didn’t try. The problem is, the Giants not only aren’t up to par with the Padres and Dodgers at the major-league level, their farm system also takes a back seat.

Kyle Harrison is a real-deal pitching prospect, considered the Giants’ best since Madison Bumgarner, but a wide gap follows. Other top prospects have been ineffective or injured and didn’t make much of an impression in trade talks.

The Padres, meantime, had the goods to land not only Soto but Bell, Drury and Hader, substantially improving their path to October. Soto, the 23-year-old superstar, joined Manny Machado with rehabbing Fernando Tatis Jr. on the way, a trio to rival the Dodgers’ mighty threesome of Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman and Trea Turner.

A big three the Giants don’t

San Diego had the goods to land not only Soto but Bell, Drury and Hader, substantially improving their path to October.

have.

Before the deadline, the Padres had an 84.9% chance of making the playoffs, the Giants 17.3%, according to FanGraphs. Once the deadline passed, the Padres’ chances soared to 96.4%, the Giants’ nosedived to 7.8%. After the Dodgers completed their Oracle Park sweep, that figure sank to 4.1%.

It wasn’t always like this, of course. For most of a halfcentury, the Padres had nothing on the Giants. In fact, when it was time for the Giants to clinch a division title, the Padres almost always were guests at the party.

Remarkably, of the Giants’ nine division titles, seven were clinched with wins over the Padres.

Only two (1989, 2000) didn’t come with wins over the Padres, though in 1989 the Giants celebrated in their Dodger Stadium clubhouse when the second-place Padres were eliminated in a 13-inning loss to the Reds.

Thanks for the memories, San Diego. The Padres can make their own memories now. With Los Angeles to the north, Mexico to the south, an ocean to the west and a desert to the east, the Padres are viewed as a small-market team but no longer act like one. San Diego lost the Chargers (five years ago) and Clippers (long ago) to L.A., and the Padres are capitalizing on having the market to themselves.

Before the Soto trade, the Petco Park vibe was livelier than at any time in its 19-year history, the Padres outdrawing the Giants by more than 5,000 a game. After the trade, fans bought tickets at a record pace — the rush for 2023 tickets became so overwhelming, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported, that the Padres decided to place a cap on season tickets.

For years, so many Giants fans frequented games in San Diego that they seemed like home games. The environment is changing, as we might experience when the Giants visit Petco Park for a three-game series starting Monday.

While the industry can’t wait for a Dodgers-Padres National League Championship Series, the Giants are at a crossroads, neither buyers nor sellers, a .500-ish team seeking an identity and watching little brother receive all the accolades. For Giants fans, that new world order isn’t comforting.