It was a race to the end between the Padres and White Sox, the teams vying last offseason for free-agent shortstop Manny Machado.
The Sox reportedly offered Machado $250 million over eight years, with incentives that could add $50 million or more. The Padres offered $300 million over 10 years, all of it guaranteed.
It was a no-brainer for Machado, who took the Padres’ money and ran.
But in the end, the Sox won.
Perhaps it’s too soon to call Machado’s $300 million contract a bust. He has nine years left, and a lot can happen in the 2020s.
But the ramifications of the deal already have been felt in San Diego, where manager Andy Green was fired after an underachieving season. More changes are in store in 2020 if there’s little improvement.
“Heads will roll,” Padres Executive Chairman Ron Fowler said to fans after the season. “Beginning with mine.”
Imagine for a second Sox Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf saying the same thing.
You can’t because heads never roll on the South Side, where they’re permanently affixed on the organizational flow chart, even after 11 straight playoff-free seasons.
The Sox and Padres have a lot in common besides their obsession with Machado, including bright, progressive, Ivy League-educated general managers in Rick Hahn and A.J. Preller.
Hahn graduated from Harvard Law School and Northwestern’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management before starting as an associate at a sports agency and moving to the Sox front office in October 2000. Twelve years later, he was named Sox GM at age 41.
Preller went to Cornell, where he was a Delta Chi fraternity brother of Jon Daniels, who later became GM of the Rangers at age 28 and hired Preller in the scouting department in 2004. Ten years later, Preller became Padres GM at age 36.
Hahn and Preller are in the middle of executing rebuilds, which is why the battle for Machado last winter was so puzzling. The Yankees showed lukewarm interest, but no one else considered Machado worth the exorbitant demands, leaving the two rebuilding teams going head to head into spring training in mid-February.
Hahn, who had vowed at SoxFest in January to “go down swinging if we don’t convert,“ was genuinely disappointed when Machado announced Feb. 19 he was signing with the Padres.
“This isn’t the last time we’re going to be pursuing premium talent, and we’re not going to convert on all of them,” Hahn said. “We learned that lesson harshly today. But we aren’t going to shy away from continuing to try to make this team better.”
The Sox were criticized by many for making an offer they knew was far less guaranteed money than the Padres’ package. But eight months later, they should be thanking their lucky stars.
They still have money to spend this offseason, and Hahn stated after losing out on Machado that it would be spent down the road. Look for him to home in on slugger J.D. Martinez if the Red Sox slugger opts out of his contract. Martinez would be a much better fit than Machado.
Machado didn’t have a bad year, just not a $30 million-average-salary kind of year. He played third base in San Diego, where he ranked 18th among third basemen in OPS (.796) and 16th in WAR (3.1), according to fangraphs.com.
Yoan Moncada, whom the Sox moved from second to third in 2019, ranked sixth among third basemen in OPS (.915) and sixth in WAR (5.7). Sox shortstop Tim Anderson, who probably would have moved to center field had Machado signed with the Sox, led the majors with a .335 average while also leading the majors with 26 errors.
You can argue the Sox, who lost 89 games and played at a .400 clip (30-45) in the second half, would’ve been a little better with Machado in the lineup in 2019 and for the next few years as the Moncada-Eloy Jimenez-Luis Robert nucleus develops.
But it’s hard to argue he had any effect on the Padres, or that their rebuild took a step forward upon his arrival. They lost 92 games in 2019 despite being at .500 in the first half, playing at a .347 clip (25-47) after the All-Star break.
That’s why Fowler delivered his “heads will roll” address.
“I don’t run and hide from stuff,” he later told the San Diego Union-Tribune. “It was a terrible year. To be 45-45 and end up winning 25 games after that? God forbid.”
Dramatics aside, the Padres still have one of the better farm systems, which made it a good landing spot for any potential manager. Their choice to replace Green was an unknown, Jayce Tingler, who was the Rangers’ player development field coordinator and has no managerial experience outside of the Dominican Summer League and Arizona Rookie League.
Preller knew Tingler from their days in the Rangers organization. The days when GMs hired their old drinking buddies are long gone, apparently replaced by the days of GMs hiring their old protein shake buddies.
As for the Sox, they’ll bring back manager Rick Renteria with the same staff, except for the addition of hitting coach Frank Menechino.
“When Ricky was put in that role, it wasn’t with the idea that he was just going to be the right guy for the first stage, the stage that is coming toward an end here, or is at an end here,” Hahn said at the end of the season.
“Obviously, the history and teaching and communicating and holding guys accountable is very important now. But even at the time we hired him, we felt he had the ability to not only set the right winning culture but to put guys in the best position to win.”
Will heads roll if the Sox aren’t in position to win by the end of 2020?
Don’t count on it.
