How these Padres were built, Pt. 5: The coolest team in baseball
The San Diego Padres might be the best team in baseball but they're definitely the coolest team in baseball. That didn't happen on purpose, but it's not going away any time soon.
Over this last week, I’ve skipped over what a laughingstock franchise the San Diego Padres have been for decades and went right into telling the story of how they went from new owners/front office in 2015 to where they are now. It’s been a bit of a rollercoaster ride.
After A.J. Preller was hired, he tried unsuccessfully to build a competitive team via trade and ended up destroying the Padres’ farm system in the process. One year later, he sold off the entire major league team via trade and ended up building back the same system he had previously destroyed.
Realizing they had something special coming in Fernando Tatis Jr., the Padres then went about assembling more talent to put around him. This meant spending more money, and signing highly-paid free agents for the first time in team history.
And that’s where we left off yesterday. This is the final installment of the series, the one I’ve been building towards all week, so apologies for the length on this one.
How these Padres were built:
The 2019 Padres started hot and really faded down the stretch. Fernando Tatis Jr. missed most of the second half with an injury and Chris Paddack became less effective when he got towards career highs in innings thrown. Plus, in addition to a disappointing first year in San Diego for Manny Machado, the bullpen wilted under the pressure of a young starting rotation.
Still, it had become obvious to anyone that was paying attention that a big part of the problem for the team was the manager. Andy Green’s no-nonsense style had already worn thin on the veterans and wasn’t really helping the rookies. He was removed from his position towards the end of the season, and then the search was on for his replacement.
The hiring of Jayce Tingler
Jayce Tingler came out of nowhere, having never managing at the MLB level before, but had a history with A.J. Preller that helped him get the job he has today.
At the very least, it sent a strong message that the Padres weren’t trying to do what the rest of baseball was doing. If so, they would’ve undoubtedly hired someone like Buck Showalter to come in and right the ship. But they wanted their own guy and they didn’t care if it didn’t make sense to you.
Personally, after hearing so many rumors and stories about Andy Green’s unwillingness to try and learn Spanish, it was heartwarming to see a guy hired that was mostly fluent in the language many of his players spoke primarily. In the year prior to becoming the Padres manager, Jayce was managing a Dominican Winter League team. That could only help things.
Changing their stripes, literally
Padres fans had clamored for the team to switch their primary color to brown (and yellow? and orange? Didn’t matter.) and away from blue for over a decade by time the 2019 season finished.
Ron Fowler had spent years as chairman fighting against the idea, oblivious or uncaring when it came to what the fanbase wanted.
The “bring back the brown” movement really focused on giving the Padres a unique identify. Too many teams had fallen down a design trap and were wearing what was essentially the same uniform. The Padres looked like the Brewers who looked like the Mariners. Blue logos and fonts on white uniforms at home, blue logos and fonts on gray uniforms on the road.
We were told that a uniform change was coming following the 2019 season, and later we were told that brown was heavily involved. That’s about all we knew. Then the stars came out.
Everything about the new Padres uniforms, unveiled just days after Tingler’s hiring and weeks after the 2019 season finished, was perfect. From the pinstripes that they hadn’t worn in twenty years to the road color that was more sand than gray to….well, just look at them! They’re gorgeous and definitely unique.
The unveiling was also pretty special. Not just because the team went out of their way to involve fans and pay homage to the campaign to bring back the brown, but because more than a month after a disappointing season they were able to get Tatis and Machado and Hosmer to come back to town to act as models for them. That couldn’t have been easy. Players take their time off seriously, especially right after a disappointing season ends.
Slam Diego
Here’s where it all came together.
The Padres had assembled a talented roster, put a new manager at the helm, and had attempted to exorcise some demons with new colors and uniforms. And yet, a month into the pandemic-shortened season, the Padres were 11-12 and in 4th place in the NL West. It wasn’t working.
During a trip to Texas to play the Rangers, an organization that had previously been home for A.J. Preller and Jayce Tingler (and Jurickson Profar), young superstar Fernando Tatis. Jr. did the unthinkable.
With a 10-3 lead and the bases loaded, Tatis swung at a 3-0 pitch and hit a grand slam that gave the Padres a 14-3 lead. This broke one of baseball’s unwritten rules, and the Rangers were upset about the young star’s attempt to show them up.
The Padres’ initial reaction was to apologize profusely. Jayce Tingler and a bunch of veterans on the team explained that Tatis didn’t mean it, he had just missed a sign, and that now he knows and it’ll never happen again. The team even had Tatis hold a press conference to apologize for being really good at hitting baseballs. It was all so stupid and it was no different than how Andy Green would’ve handled it.
The next day, Wil Myers hit a grand slam in a win and the Padres and Rangers flew to San Diego to play another two games.
After hitting a HR in the first home game of the series, Fernando Tatis Jr. mocked the Rangers and pretended to cry as he walked into the dugout. It was arrogant. It was brash. Sure, he had publicly apologized, but now we knew he didn’t mean it. He wanted to hit dingers and then he wanted to celebrate. Those were all the rules he needed. In the 10th inning, Manny Machado hit a walk-off grand slam and the “Slam Diego” was born.
Not only were the Padres going to eventually break records by hitting grand slams in four consecutive games, they had shown that they weren’t playing by baseball’s old rules. This wasn’t a Tony LaRussa team that was more concerned with how it looked than how it felt. These Padres were here to beat your ass and dance while doing so.
To Jayce Tingler’s credit, he went along for the ride. Instead of pushing back against such a brazen lack of respect for baseball’s unwritten rules, the new manager realized who was more important and decided to let the players dance, and bat flip, and generally have more fun than MLB players are allowed to have during games.
This was what the team needed. It was like oxygen for a flame. The Padres had already been talented, but now they looked good and felt good. Being a San Diego Padre no longer felt like a thing a player would be upset about, but rather something that they’d dream about. Look at those guys over there! They’re having fun and playing great baseball! Why can’t we be like them?
This party goes until ???
If there was anything that could ruin the good vibes coming off a successful 2020 Padres season, where the team had won a playoff series for the first time since 1998, it was the dark cloud of Fernando Tatis Jr.’s eventual free agency.
After two seasons, it was obvious that Tatis was the most fun player in all of baseball. He was talented beyond the wildest dreams of most, and cool as hell to boot. His dances and bat flips and risky style of play were already legendary, and Padres fans were already starting to wonder about how it would feel to see him end up on a big market team during the prime years of his career.
After signing Wil Myers and Eric Hosmer to the largest contracts in team history, Ron Fowler explained that the team had to consider its debt right before team owner Peter Seidler swooped in and pulled off a $300 million contract that made Manny Machado’s deal the new largest one in team history.
Surely, the team was out of money. They’d have to figure out the Tatis problem in a few years when Myers’ and Hosmer’s contracts expire. Right? RIGHT?!?
Nope. With Ron Fowler out as chairman and Peter Seidler officially taking over the reigns, the Padres signed the most exciting player in franchise history to a 14-year contract worth $340 million.
In addition to it being an embrace of Tatis spitting on the unwritten rules of baseball, it sent a message to the rest of baseball: This is no longer a transfer station. When good players get here, they stay here. The Padres are not going away any time soon.
Cool is contagious
By the start of the 2021 season, the Padres were a talented team with full support of the ownership. They also looked good, and unique, in their brown-and-yellow uniforms. And, most importantly, they had learned an important lesson from 2020: Let the players be themselves.
Bat flips and dancing was encouraged. Got a 3-0 pitch and a big lead? Let’s see how far you can hit the meatball this guy’s about to throw. These Padres are here to win games, and maybe championships, not make friends.
This team has a manager, but they’re lead by the players at the top. Manny Machado, Eric Hosmer, and Fernando Tatis Jr. are the ones running this clubhouse and those guys like to have a good time. They’re also undoubtedly cool, and that has rubbed off on the rest of the team as well.
Why does Trent Grisham feel empowered to stare at a HR against the Dodgers and talk shit to their dugout while running the bases? Because he knows that he won’t get in trouble for it. It’s the Padres way.
Why does Jake Cronenworth look for the camera in the dugout so that he can flex while wearing his Hulk Hogan sunglasses after hitting one out? Because that’s what Tatis would do.
Nothing has fit this collection of players better than the “swag chain” that Machado bought, in a brilliant bit of leadership and motivation, which players get to wear after hitting a home run or being named the player of the game.
How did the Padres become the coolest team in baseball? Well, it took a while.
First, they had to dig themselves out of the depths of baseball hell. Then, they had to find a superstar (or three) and sign him to a long-term contract. When that didn’t lead to wins, they had to listen to their fans and find their unique identity.
Finally, they had to get backed into a corner where they had to choose between letting the players be themselves (a real no-no in baseball over the last 30 years) or risk losing the clubhouse and the ear of maybe the best player in team history.
The Padres made the right decision but they had to be put in a position where any other decision would’ve been catastrophic, and that’s fine! That’s typically how seismic shifts work. And now the Padres are the envy of other franchises that want to be right where they are: The coolest team in baseball.