‘He did it the right way’: Losing Peter Seidler is a loss for baseball ownership
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Buster Olney, ESPN Senior Writer
In the fall of 2022, San Diego Padres owner Peter Seidler headed the team traveling party that went to visit Trea Turner as Turner weighed offers in free agency. Turner had been drafted by San Diego in 2014, and, eight years later, the time he spent with Seidler affirmed what Turner felt back then: What a great guy, Turner thought, warm and engaging.
Seidler wasn’t just there to visit; he was serious about signing the shortstop: He OKed an offer in the range of $350 million, well beyond the competing proposal of the Philadelphia Phillies. A few days later, the Padres made it clear that if Turner needed a higher offer, well, Seidler would make that happen, too.
“I was really impressed by him,” Turner recalled Tuesday afternoon, after he learned of Seidler’s death at 63. “What he was willing to do to win — he wasn’t going to leave any stone unturned.”
Turner had already been leaning toward making a deal with the Phillies, but Seidler’s humanity and his enthusiasm for bringing a championship to the Padres weighed on him. The notion of turning down Seidler felt heartbreaking to Turner, who eventually conveyed this message: Please don’t make another offer.
This was typical of the affect that Seidler had on people, thanks to his genial and understated nature, his sincerity, his love for the game in which he grew up. The grandson of the late Los Angeles Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley, he was a baseball fan who became a champion for baseball fans in San Diego, effectively spending his own money in an effort to win that franchise’s first title. He was the kind of owner that all baseball fans dream of — a notion that cuts particularly this week, as the MLB owners prepare to vote on another California team’s relocation. Oakland Athletics owner John Fisher is prepared to rip his team out of the East Bay, away from their fans. Seidler was devoted to the idea of winning a championship for Padres fans. And with them.
Mark Sweeney, a former player for the Padres who is part of the team’s broadcasts, said in a text message, “Today, we all lost an amazing man that left a legacy that reached way beyond the game of baseball and this great city that he loved. His passion and devotion to the game will never be forgotten!”
A few years ago, Seidler stood against the backstop behind home plate in Petco Park and in his gentle voice, he talked with a reporter about baseball, sharing stories about the Dodger teams and players that Seidler grew up watching, about Padres legend Tony Gwynn. At one point, the reporter asked Seidler about the sustainability of what the Padres were doing, spending big on players like Manny Machado, and Seidler smiled slightly. “We’ll be fine,” he said.
The Padres traded for Yu Darvish, for Joe Musgrove, who was born and raised in San Diego County. Before the trade deadline of 2022, the Padres swapped an army of prospects to the Washington Nationals in return for Juan Soto and also dealt for Milwaukee Brewers closer Josh Hader. Seidler was not handwringing over the projected long-term value of prospects; rather, he was just trying to do what he could to help the Padres win the World Series, and to reward the passion of a fan base that responded by filling seats: From 2018 to 2023, the team’s average game attendance increased from about 26,000 to over 40,000. Season ticket sales have soared in recent seasons.
Thanks to Seidler, the Padres came close to the final goal. After knocking out the New York Mets in the wild-card round of the 2022 playoffs, San Diego faced the Dodgers — “They are the dragon up the freeway we’re trying to slay,” Seidler had said earlier in the season, on a mic’d up appearance on “Sunday Night Baseball” — and beat L.A. The Padres’ ride ended when they lost to the Phillies in the National League Championship Series.
Despite that final disappointment, Seidler had related in texts and over the phone how much fun it was to see the outpouring of Padres fans. “The crowds are beyond awesome,” he said in May. “A true credit to our players and fans who together and organically pushed their relationship to this fun, exciting and intense level.”
He listed a handful of players, and then caught himself. “I guess I could go on and on. It gives me chills when I think about all the positive energy.”
The reporter once asked him to send a family photo for a story; Seidler forwarded more than a dozen and laughingly apologized for his enthusiasm, while offering context for boyhood pictures with his grandfather and mother, taken in Dodger Stadium, and for a picture with the team broadcast — “Vinnie,” as Seidler referred to Vin Scully.
“A good man, a great heart,” one of his ownership peers said shortly after the news broke. “This just breaks my heart. He had such a big heart.”
“People [in the sport] were upset with him because he spent his own money, but he wanted to win the World Series and he wasn’t worried about the cost. He did it the right way — he paid into revenue-sharing, rather than being a recipient.”
Seidler was a two-time cancer survivor, and his health issues were widely known within the industry, though not much was shared publicly outside an announcement by the Padres this fall that he had undergone a medical procedure that would keep him away from the ballpark.
Now, there are questions about whether the franchise will be able to match its current level of spending without Seidler spurring it on. In recent years, the team carried a payroll of almost $100 million in 2019, more than doubled it in 2022, to $221 million, and then climbed again in 2023 to an estimated $296 million. Machado, Darvish, Musgrove and Jake Cronenworth have signed long-term extensions, and executives with other teams have quietly speculated whether it can continue. The San Diego Union-Tribune reported in September that the Padres need to cut their payroll dramatically before the 2024 season, to something closer to $200 million, and if that’s the case, then San Diego might be forced to trade Soto and/or other expensive stars.
But there is no doubt about the legacy of Seidler, who was willing to trade profits for the fun. For the fans.
When Trea Turner made his final decision to sign with the Phillies over the Padres, he felt he owed it to Seidler to call him directly, and the shortstop braced for the response. But Seidler worked to make Turner feel better, warmly and graciously accepting his decision, offering some parting words that reflected the perspective of someone who had been in a love affair with baseball his whole life.
“We’re in this together,” Turner said Seidler told him, “to grow this great game.”
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Jorge Castillo
NEW YORK — A blunder that typifies the current state of the New York Yankees, who find themselves in the midst of their second six-game losing streak in three weeks, happened in front of 41,401 fans at Citi Field on Saturday, and almost nobody noticed.
The Yankees were jogging off the field after securing the third out of the fourth inning of their 12-6 loss to the Mets when shortstop Anthony Volpe, as is standard for teams across baseball at the end of innings, threw the ball to right fielder Aaron Judge as he crossed into the infield from right field.
Only Judge wasn’t looking, and the ball nailed him in the head, knocking his sunglasses off and leaving a small cut near his right eye. The wound required a bandage to stop the bleeding, but Judge stayed in the game.
“Confusion,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “I didn’t know what happened initially. [It just] felt like something happened. Of course I was a little concerned.”
Avoiding an injury to the best player in baseball was on the Yankees’ very short list of positives in another sloppy, draining defeat to their crosstown rivals. With the loss, the Yankees, who held a three-game lead over the Toronto Blue Jays in the American League East standings entering June 30, find themselves tied with the Tampa Bay Rays for second place three games behind the Blue Jays heading into Sunday’s Subway Series finale.
The nosedive has been fueled by messy defense and a depleted pitching staff that has encountered a wall.
“It’s been a terrible week,” said Boone, who before the game announced starter Clarke Schmidt will likely undergo season-ending Tommy John surgery.
For the second straight day, the Mets capitalized on mistakes and cracked timely home runs. After slugging three homers in Friday’s series opener, the Mets hit three more Saturday — a grand slam in the first inning from Brandon Nimmo to take a 4-0 lead and two home runs from Pete Alonso to widen the gap.
Nimmo’s blast — his second grand slam in four days — came after Yankees left fielder Jasson Dominguez misplayed a ball hit by the Mets’ leadoff hitter in the first inning. On Friday, he misread Nimmo’s line drive and watched it sail over his head for a double. On Saturday, he was slow to react to Starling Marte’s flyball in the left-center field gap and braked without catching or stopping it, allowing Marte to advance to second for a double. Yankees starter Carlos Rodon then walked two batters to load the bases for Nimmo, who yanked a mistake, a 1-2 slider over the wall.
“That slider probably needs to be down,” said Rodon, who allowed seven runs (six earned) over five innings. “A lot of misses today and they punished them.”
Jazz Chisholm Jr.’s throwing woes at third base — a position the Yankees have asked him to play to accommodate DJ LeMahieu at second base — continued in the second inning when he fielded Tyrone Taylor’s groundball and sailed a toss over first baseman Cody Bellinger’s head. Taylor was given second base and scored moments later on Marte’s RBI single.
The Yankees were charged with their second error in the Mets’ four-run seventh inning when center fielder Trent Grisham charged Francisco Lindor’s single up the middle and had it bounce off the heel of his glove.
The mistake allowed a run to score from second base without a throw, extending the Mets lead back to three runs after the Yankees had chipped their deficit, and allowed a heads-up Lindor to advance to second base. Lindor later scored on Alonso’s second home run, a three-run blast off left-hander Jayvien Sandridge in the pitcher’s major league debut.
“Just got to play better,” Judge said. “That’s what it comes down to. It’s fundamentals. Making a routine play, routine. It’s just the little things. That’s what it kind of comes down to. But every good team goes through a couple bumps in the road.”
This six-game losing skid has looked very different from the Yankees’ first. That rough patch, consisting of losses to the Boston Red Sox and Los Angeles Angels, was propelled by offensive troubles. The Yankees scored six runs in the six games and gave up just 16. This time, run prevention is the issue; the Yankees have scored 34 runs and surrendered 54 in four games against the Blue Jays in Toronto and two in Queens.
“The offense is starting to swing the bat, put some runs on the board,” Boone said. “The pitching, which has kind of carried us a lot this season, has really, really struggled this week. We haven’t caught the ball as well as I think we should.
“So, look, when you live it and you’re going through it, it sucks, it hurts. But you got to be able to handle it. You got to be able to deal with it. You got to be able to weather it and come out of this and grow.”
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Jorge Castillo
NEW YORK — The New York Yankees, digging for options to bolster their infield, have signed third baseman Jeimer Candelario to a minor league contract and assigned him to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, the affiliate announced Saturday.
Candelario, 31, was released by the Cincinnati Reds on June 23, halfway through a three-year, $45 million contract he signed before the start of last season. The decision was made after Candelario posted a .707 OPS in 2024 and batted .113 with a .410 OPS in 22 games for the Reds before going on the injured list in April with a back injury.
The performance was poor enough for Cincinnati to cut him in a move that Reds president of baseball operations Nick Krall described as a sunk cost.
For the Yankees, signing Candelario is a low-cost flier on a player who recorded an .807 OPS just two seasons ago as they seek to find a third baseman to move Jazz Chisholm Jr. to second base, his natural position.
Candelario is the second veteran infielder the Yankees have signed to a minor league contract in the past three days; they agreed to terms with Nicky Lopez on Thursday.
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