How Can a Small Market Team Go All in and Win?

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Image: San Diego Padres - Twitter

San Diego Padres welcome Juan Soto and Josh Bell

As time goes by Major League Baseball’s seasons are often remembered by the lessons learned from its champions. For the long-term health of the sport, it might be a good thing if teams had an opportunity to learn from the World Series Champion San Diego Padres.

While several teams made themselves better in the leadup to last week’s trade deadline, the Padres dominated the conversation. They had already made one of the trade season’s biggest splashes by acquiring Josh Hader from the Brewers, but they followed that move with a true blockbuster when they acquired superstar outfielder Juan Soto (and first baseman Josh Bell) from the Nationals. Brandon Drury, a slugging utilityman who had already connected for 20 home runs with the Reds this season, might only have been the fourth-best player the Padres acquired last week.

Furthermore, this is hardly the only time in recent memory the Padres have gone all-in to acquire the sport’s top available talent: They’ve also signed Manny Machado and Eric Hosmer, traded for Blake Snell and Yu Darvish and given Fernando Tatis Jr. one of the largest contract extensions in MLB history. The Padres have been one of the biggest participants in every transaction cycle for several years, continually engaging in the type of activity normally reserved for baseball’s blue-blood franchises.

Lower Income Team

The Padres, however, are nowhere near the Yankees or Dodgers’ income levels. In fact, San Diego is one of MLB’s smallest media markets (this Forbes story from 2021 cites their #29 ranking among US markets). Just up the freeway in Los Angeles, the Dodgers have a TV deal worth $320 million per season.

Before selling a single ticket in 2022 they already made enough money off local TV alone to cover the largest Opening Day payroll in baseball ($280 million) and still have $40 million left over. The Padres’ deal, signed in 2012, has an average annual value of $60 million. They still opened the season with MLB’s fifth highest payroll.

The Padres also continue to add pieces despite not being particularly well-positioned to win. When they acquired Hader on Monday, they were 12 games back of the Dodgers in the NL West with 59 games to play. It's all but certain that their only path to the postseason is as a Wild Card, where they currently project to face Atlanta in the first round. Because MLB’s new playoff format calls for all three first round games to be played in the division winner’s home park, the Padres won’t even get a single postseason home game unless they either pass the Dodgers in the NL West or upset a division winner in their opening postseason series.

Simply put, the Padres have plenty of reasons not to go all in. Certainly, plenty of teams in similar positions have opted not to compete in this fashion. In an era where many MLB teams are engaged in perpetual rebuilds or choosing profit over competitiveness, the Padres are showing that another path is possible. As Craig Calcaterra wrote in his newsletter last week, “if the Padres can do this any team can do this, so stop blaming market size for the inaction of your local nine’s front office and blame simple cheapness and greed.”

Of course, the Padres’ gambit may not work. Several of the aggressive moves they’ve made in recent years have already fallen short of expectations: Eric Hosmer’s Padres tenure ended unceremoniously last week after five roughly average seasons, and Fernando Tatis Jr. has yet to take the field this season after signing his massive extension last year. When a team is as aggressive as the Padres have been, sometimes they’ll end up getting less than they bargained for.

In an era where many MLB teams can be accused of not trying, however, no one is going to lump the Padres in that group. If they demonstrate that a small market team can go all-in like this and win, they might send a message that many of the sport’s owners and fan bases desperately need to hear.