Olney: How the Padres are embracing the spirit of late owner Peter Seidler
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Buster Olney, ESPN Senior Writer
Every baseball fan base has its own identity. A Philadelphia Phillies crowd is intense. Fans of the Los Angeles Dodgers are raucous (but late-arriving, fighting through the traffic bottlenecks). New York Yankees fans are anxious, emitting murmurs of distress between pitches.
In San Diego, as Padres manager Mike Shildt said, “every game is like a party.”
That was late owner Peter Seidler’s vision for this team, which will manifest today in Game 3 of San Diego’s 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 disclosed). But if he had been in attendance today, you probably would’ve found him behind home plate in the hour before first pitch, genially chatting and absorbing all of the sights and sounds, watching the gathering fans, loud in their Padres colors and enthusiasm, the atmosphere distinct.
Seidler deserved the credit for so much of it. After purchasing the team in 2012, he worked against the industry’s conventional wisdom about what was possible for this franchise. The Padres, long defined as a small-market club that struggled to afford stars, are now a team loaded with big names, big talents and championship aspirations.
With a foundation of expensive veterans such as Manny Machado, Xander Bogaerts and Yu Darvish and emerging talents such as Rookie of the Year candidate Jackson Merrill, the 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 putting this city back on the map, I’m going to create this atmosphere,'” said Eric Hosmer, who played five seasons with the Padres.
Tony Gwynn Jr., the son of the late Hall of Fame outfielder Tony Gwynn and an analyst on 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 the middle of Gwynn Sr.’s Hall of Fame career, the Padres drew just 1.3 million fans, in a season in which the team’s then ownership ordered the unloading of stars such as Gary Sheffield and Fred McGriff. On some days, Jack Murphy Stadium — the Padres’ home at the time — was so empty that birds and other wildlife would scavenge leftover concession food — during the game, rather than afterward. There were few humans around to interrupt.
Even in the midst of a stretch of contention after Petco Park opened in 2004, interest continued to lag. 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 talked with a visiting reporter about how to augment the baseball experience in San Diego. He’d 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 the hope of more business, and the team has operated close to or at capacity for Dodger Stadium for most of the decades since. Seidler was raised in baseball, and he knew how a community could link with a team. He was determined to find the path to the same level of excitement in San Diego.
In 2018, the Padres’ payroll was $94 million, with the franchise residing in the familiar neighborhood of small-market teams. But in spring training of the next year, the Padres shocked the baseball world by agreeing to a $300 million deal with Machado — a massive contract that was wildly out of character for the way the franchise had conducted business for decades. At the time, the perception within the industry was that this deal, along with the $144 million contract that Hosmer had signed the prior winter, would place the Padres on an unsustainable financial track.
Even Gwynn Jr., who witnessed the deconstruction of really good Padres teams in the past because of payroll concerns, acknowledged that he was initially skeptical that the franchise would continue on this path.
But Seidler continued to tell San Diego general manager A.J. Preller to think big, to pursue even the most expensive players. The Padres took on salary to acquire Darvish; they traded for Joe Musgrove. In summer 2022, Preller traded for Juan Soto, the game’s best young star, and waded in the deep end of free agency again the following offseason.
The Padres tried to sign shortstop Trea Turner, offering him a record sum for a player at that position, and when Turner signed with the Phillies, Seidler and Preller met with Aaron Judge, dangling the concept of a deal that would’ve been worth something in the range of $400 million. When Judge re-signed with the Yankees, the Padres pivoted to Bogaerts, signing him for $280 million — far beyond what the Red Sox had been willing to pay.
The Padres’ payroll increased to $248 million in 2023. The team’s spending spree has generated a lot of commentary from other organizations — a lot of it negative, with rival executives expressing shock over how much long-term debt San Diego has taken on with all of these deals. When asked about this in spring 2022, Seidler smiled slightly — knowingly — and said, “We’ll be fine.” He didn’t offer any details about how the Padres would make it work, or what new revenue streams might emerge to help pay for the massive 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.
And sure enough, the Padres have ranked in the top four in NL attendance every year since 2021. This year, they averaged more than 41,000 fans a game — more than any team in baseball outside the Dodgers and Phillies. In the first season after Seidler’s passing, the Padres reduced their payroll and flipped Soto to the Yankees for pitching in a blockbuster offseason trade, but Preller and CEO Erik Greupner continued to foster a fan expectation that the team will work to win.
In March, Preller swapped prospects for Dylan Cease, the best available starting pitcher at the time, and then Preller made the first big deal of the season by dealing for batting Luis Arraez in early May. At the trade deadline, San Diego continued to add — relievers Tanner Scott and Jason Adam, among others. With those bold moves fortifying the roster, the team took off after a middling start, making a late run at the NL West title before locking in the NL’s top wild-card spot. They swept the Atlanta Braves in the first round and split the first two games of the division series in L.A. Now, the Padres come home with a chance to take down their biggest rivals in front of a rocking Petco Park, just as their owner would have wanted.
“I’d say San Diegans are really happy with where we are,” said Gwynn Jr., “as opposed to what they had seen before.”
MILWAUKEE — The Cincinnati Reds lost 1-0 to the Milwaukee Brewers on Thursday night to become only the second team in the live-ball era (since 1920) to lose three consecutive 1-0 games.
The Reds joined the Philadelphia Phillies, who lost three straight in the same fashion in 1960, according to ESPN Research.
“Nobody’s happy with what’s happened the last three games,” Reds manager Terry Francona said after the string of 1-0 losses continued in the opener of a four-game series at Milwaukee. “We’ll figure it out together. I feel strongly about that.”
Cincinnati’s lineup showcased its potential Monday in a 14-3 victory over the Texas Rangers, but the Reds haven’t scored since.
Texas’ Nathan Eovaldi outdueled Carson Spiers on Tuesday. Jack Leiter and four Texas relievers combined for 10 strikeouts Wednesday as the Reds wasted a brilliant performance from Hunter Greene.
Milwaukee’s Nestor Cortes shut down Cincinnati on Thursday, allowing one hit, striking out six and walking two over six innings.
Cincinnati’s Nick Lodolo gave up four hits and one unearned run in 6⅔ innings Thursday, but he took the loss because the Reds mustered just two hits.
“It’s part of the game, you know?” Lodolo said. “I’ll be honest with you. Obviously I want us to score, but I’m not really thinking about it. I’ve got to do my job at the end of the day, regardless. We’ll turn it around. I guarantee that.”
That’s the attitude Francona wants to see from his pitchers as Cincinnati’s hitters try to break out of their slump.
“We’re not going to have a situation where it’s ‘us’ when we win and it’s ‘they’ when we lose,” Francona said. “We’ll do this together.”
Francona said there’s no common thread between the games that explains his lineup’s struggles. The Reds have faced different styles of pitchers each time.
Eovaldi is a veteran right-hander who went the distance while allowing four hits and no walks. Leiter’s a hard-throwing rookie right-hander. Cortes, a veteran left-hander, doesn’t have the velocity of Eovaldi or Leiter but effectively mixed his cutter and changeup with his fastball.
Cincinnati’s struggles Thursday may have been particularly frustrating because Cortes looked so awful in his last start, a 20-9 loss to the New York Yankees. Cortes allowed homers on each of his first three pitches that day and ended up yielding eight hits and five walks in two innings of a game that drew attention to the Yankees’ use of “torpedo bats.”
The Reds made Cortes look like an entirely different pitcher.
“It was embarrassing, what happened to me last time,” Cortes said. “I think, as a starter, you’ve got 30 or 32 of these. There’s going to be a lot of bad ones throughout the way. You’ve just got to learn how to brush them off and go to the next one. That’s what I did.”
The Reds’ lone hit off Cortes came from Jose Trevino, who delivered a one-out double in the third off his former Yankees teammate. Cincinnati’s only other hit Thursday was a single by Jeimer Candelario off Elvis Peguero in the seventh.
Cincinnati has a combined nine hits, three walks and 27 strikeouts during the skid.
“To be totally honest, you see this all the time throughout a baseball season,” Trevino said. “Pitchers will pick up the hitters and the hitters will pick up the pitchers. It will all switch at some point. We’re going to need them. They’re going to need us. And at some point, we’re all going to be together. That’s just how the baseball season goes.
“Right now, our pitchers are doing really well and our hitters, we’re grinding. It’s not like we’re out there trying to give outs away. We’re out there putting some good at-bats together. We’re going to turn this thing around. I have full confidence in this team.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Los Angeles Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman, who slipped and fell in the shower Sunday morning, was put on the injured list for his ankle injury, the team announced Thursday.
The move is retroactive to Monday. He hasn’t played since Saturday and is 3-for-12 this season with two home runs and four RBIs.
The incident happened at home during the Dodgers’ off day. Freeman’s wife had to drive him to Dodger Stadium on Sunday for a three-hour treatment session. By the time it was over, he was able to drive himself home. An X-ray showed no serious damage.
Freeman sprained his right ankle on a play at first base in late September and struggled in the first two rounds of the postseason, but it was hardly evident during the World Series. He homered in the first four games and had 12 RBIs, earning the World Series MVP award as the Dodgers beat the New York Yankees in five games.
He had debridement surgery in December to remove loose bodies in the ankle.
The Dodgers (8-0) begin a three-game series at the Philadelphia Phillies on Friday.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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