Tatis! Bogaerts! Machado! Soto? Ohtani? How the Padres turned into big spenders

ESPN baseball reporter. Covered the L.A. Rams for ESPN from 2016 to 2018 and the L.A. Angels for MLB.com from 2012 to 2016.

SAN DIEGO — Nick Martinez sat in the trainer’s room at Petco Park in early November, undergoing a physical to complete a multi-year extension, when he first learned his San Diego Padres would be in on the big free agent shortstops. The Padres, on the heels of a spirited run to the National League Championship Series, already employed a franchise shortstop in Fernando Tatis Jr. and a Gold Glove-caliber shortstop in Ha-Seong Kim. Their payroll had already risen to previously unimaginable levels. And yet they planned to chase both Trea Turner and Xander Bogaerts, while also plotting an offer for superstar outfielder Aaron Judge.

Martinez, a veteran pitcher coming off his first season in San Diego, asked himself the question that would eventually be on everybody’s mind:

How are we doing this?

Fifteen of the first 20 years of this century saw the Padres finish within the bottom third in team spending, an approach consistent with their three prior decades of existence. By 2022, though, their payroll had jumped into the neighborhood of $220 million, more than double where it stood just three years earlier. Now, after another frenetic offseason that saw them land Bogaerts on a nine-figure deal, it sits at nearly $240 million, a number eclipsed by only the New York Yankees and the New York Mets.

Fourteen active major league players possess contracts valued at more than $250 million, and three of them — Tatis, Bogaerts and Manny Machado — play for the Padres. A fourth could materialize in the near future, either through a Juan Soto extension or a Shohei Ohtani signing, and at this point nobody would be surprised by either. This is suddenly who the Padres are. And the man guiding them there, chairman Peter Seidler, won’t offer any apologies for it.

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