San Diego Padres work to maintain the vision of their late owner Peter Seidler and make every game a party
Each baseball fan base has its own identity. The multitude of Philadelphia Phillies It’s intense. The fans of the Los Angeles Dodgers They are noisy (but they arrive late, struggling to make their way through traffic jams and traffic). The fans of the New York Yankees They are anxious and make anguished murmurs between pitches.
In San Diego, as the Padres manager said, Mike Shildt“every game is like a party.”
The Californian franchise is satisfied with the response it has received from its fans. Getty Images
That was the vision of the late owner of San Diego Padres, Peter Seidlerfor this team and will manifest itself today in Game 3 of the San Diego Division Series against the Dodgers. Seidler died in November at the age of 63 (the cause of death for Seidler, a two-time cancer survivor, was not revealed). But if he had been around today, you probably would have found him behind home plate an hour before the first pitch, chatting affably and absorbing all the sights and sounds, looking at the gathered fans, in the colors and enthusiasm of the Padres, in a different atmosphere. .
Seidler deserved credit for much of this. After purchasing the team in 2012, he worked against conventional industry wisdom about what was possible for this franchise. The Padres, long defined as a small-market club struggling to pay stars, are now a team filled with big names, big talents and championship aspirations.
With a base of expensive veterans like Manny Machado, Xander Bogaerts y Yu Darvish and emerging talents such as the Rookie of the Year candidate Jackson Merrillthe Padres have baseball’s best record since the All-Star break while playing with heart-shaped patches bearing Seidler’s initials.
“Peter was the one who said, ‘Hey, we’re San Diego, we’re going to put this city back on the map, I’m going to create this atmosphere,'” he said. Eric Hosmerwho played five seasons with the Padres.
Tony Gwynn Jr.son of the late Hall of Fame outfielder Tony Gwynn and an analyst for the team’s radio network, said, “People enjoy coming to Petco Park now because it’s almost a social event.”
Baseball in San Diego didn’t always feel like this. In 1993, about halfway through Gwynn Sr.’s Hall of Fame career, the Padres drew just 1.3 million fans, in a season in which the team’s owners at the time ordered the departure of Stars like Gary Sheffield and Fred McGriff. Some days, Jack Murphy Stadium, the Padres’ home at the time, was so empty that birds and other wildlife would scavenge for food in the concession, during the game rather than afterward. There were few humans around to interrupt.
Even amid a stretch of contention after Petco Park opened in 2004, interest continued to wane. From 2008 to 2015, San Diego ranked no higher than 10th in the National League in attendance. A few years ago, Seidler stood behind home plate at Petco Park and spoke with a visiting reporter about increasing the baseball experience in San Diego. He had grown up in the sport: his mother’s father was Walter O’Malley, the owner had moved the Dodgers franchise from Brooklyn to Los Angeles in hopes of getting more business, and the team has operated near or at full capacity. capacity for most of the subsequent decades. Seidler grew up on baseball and knew how a community could bond with a team. I was determined to find my way to the same level of excitement in San Diego.
In 2018, the Padres’ payroll was $94 million, and the franchise resided in the familiar neighborhood of small-market teams. But in spring training the following year, the Padres shocked the baseball world by agreeing to a $300 million contract with Machado, a massive contract that was totally out of the ordinary for the way the franchise had run their businesses for decades. At the time, the perception within the industry was that this deal, along with the $144 million contract Hosmer had signed the previous winter, would put the Padres on an unsustainable financial trajectory.
Even Gwynn Jr., who has witnessed the deconstruction of really good Padres teams in the past due to payroll concerns, acknowledged that he was initially skeptical that the franchise would continue down this path.
But Seidler kept telling San Diego’s general manager, AJ Prellerto think big, to look for even the most expensive players. The Padres assumed the salary to acquire Darvish, negotiated by Joe Musgrove. In the summer of 2022, Preller negotiated for Juan Sotobaseball’s best young star, and fell into the depths of free agency again the following season.
The Padres tried to sign the shortstop Trea Turneroffering him a record sum for a player at that position, and when Turner signed with the Phillies, Seidler and Preller met with Aaron Judge and they approached him with the idea of a deal that would have been worth something like $400 million. When Judge re-signed with the Yankees, the Padres turned to Bogaerts, signing him for $280 million, far more than the Red Sox had been willing to pay.
The Padres’ payroll increased to $248 million in 2023. The team’s spending spree has generated plenty of commentary from other organizations, much of it negative, and rival executives expressed surprise at the amount of long-term debt it has incurred. assumed San Diego with all these agreements. When asked about this in the spring of 2022, Seidler smiled slightly, knowingly, and said: “We’ll be fine.” He didn’t offer any details on how the Padres would make it work, or what new revenue streams might arise to help pay off the enormous obligations. Rival executives have assumed that part of Seidler’s bet was that the Padres franchise would grow in value over time, in a way that would cover costs.
Editorial Selections
And sure enough, the Padres have been in the top four in attendance in the National League every year since 2021. This year, they averaged more than 41,000 fans per game, more than any team in baseball outside of the Dodgers and Phillies. In the first season after Seidler’s death, the Padres reduced their payroll and traded Soto to the Yankees for pitching in a blockbuster offseason trade, but Preller and CEO Erik Greupner They continued to foster fan expectations that the team will work to win.
In March, Preller traded prospectuses for Dylan Ceasethe best starter available at the time, and then Preller made the first big deal of the season by trading for the hitter Luis Arraez at the beginning of May. At the trade deadline, San Diego continued to add players, such as relievers Tanner Scott y Jason Adamamong others. With those bold moves strengthening the roster, the team took off after a lackluster start, making a late run for the NL West title before securing the NL’s first wild card spot. They swept away the Atlanta Braves in the first round and split the first two games of the division series in Los Angeles. Now, the Padres return home with the opportunity to defeat their biggest rivals in front of a moving Petco Park, just as its owner would have liked.
“I would say San Diegans are really happy with where we are, unlike what they’ve seen before,” Gwynn Jr. said.
