Hang a gold star on the first four years of the 10-year contract between Manny Machado and the Padres.
Let's appreciate the win-win-win outcome that has played out, even as folks fixate on what may happen between now and November, when an opt-out clause would allow the third baseman and team captain to bid out his services.
Especially in Padres Land, where so many splashy contracts splattered the team with mud — see the deals for Phil Nevin, Jake Peavy and James Shields before he was miraculously dealt for Fernando Tatis, Jr. — it's refreshing to see a massive bet result in mutual success. In this case, the contract's big winners so far are, well, everyone: Padres management, Machado and Padres fans.
Peter Seidler and A.J. Preller can take a home run trot for having dared to guarantee Machado the most money — $300 million — for a free agent in Major League Baseball history at the time.
Machado has repaid the team by hitting, fielding and staying on the field at a high level.
You don't need Bill James on call to muster a convincing statistical case that Machado has been worth the $120 million paid him, and agent Dan Lozano earned his own pay when he obtained the opt-out for the contract's midway point. Already, it's fetched a $105 million sweetener, in the form of the five-year extension Seidler-Preller offered Machado this month, as reported by the Union-Tribune's Kevin Acee.
Bear in mind, the $105 million would be added to both the $30 million due Machado this year and the $150 million he's due under the original contract's final five years.
It doesn't appear Machado misread the market when he turned down the $105 million.
Thanks to the recent free-agent contracts to older stars Trea Turner, 29, and Aaron Judge, 30, additional stacks of poker chips went into the hands of Machado and Lozano.
Are you dizzy yet from seeing MLB salary numbers? Heads up: more are coming.
Turner got 11 years and $300 million from the Phillies. The Yankees are paying Judge $360 million over nine years.
It seems not a coincidence that Seidler-Preller signed left-side infielder Xander Bogaerts for 11 years and $280 million to launch this offseason. Nearly identical in age to Machado, Bogaerts turns 30 in October. And, if Machado were to accept the $105 million, he'd be due a nearly identical $285 million over 11 years.
If he wasn't signed foremost as a hedge against a Machado departure next offseason, Bogaerts nevertheless is a plausible successor should one be needed. Certainly the Padres have candidates to replace Bogaerts at shortstop, beginning with Ha-Seong Kim and Tatis.
As it pertained to Machado, Bogaerts' arrival provided an important if indirect reminder: under Seidler and Preller, the Padres aren't sentimental about their players — even those they've showered with money and genuine-sounding praise. See: many of the highly rated prospects Preller has packaged for big league-talent.
Machado, for his own part, seems calloused in the business of baseball.
Planting a seed last season that he'd have options as a late-2023 free agent, he told Sports Illustrated he considered both Miami and San Diego to be home, an obvious nod to the Marlins as a plausible candidate. In October, when he fielded questions from local and national reporters, Machado turned a reporter's question about the mutual free agency he and Bryce Harper experienced four years ago into a subtle but pointed commentary about that MLB marketplace.
Something odd, he implied, was going on, given that the market for two 26-year-old stars didn't thaw until spring training.
"It was definitely an interesting offseason for sure, for all of us," Machado said Oct. 17, a day before he and Harper led their teams into the NLCS opener. "Me signing February 21st and Harper a couple of weeks after that — the top free agents shouldn't be signing that late, I tell you that. I don't think that's right for our organization. I don't think that's right for baseball."
So what we have here in Seidler, Preller, Machado and Lozano are four savvy operators who put together a massive, complicated contract that's benefited all of them through the deal's 40-percent mark. There isn't a small-timer in the room. They understand that Major League Baseball, which would monetize the very air that fans breathe if it could, is very much a business.
This doesn't mean a Machado-Padres extension will become reality. So many variables could come into play, such as the 2023 performances of Padres stars Juan Soto and Tatis, to say nothing of Machado.
Lurking as well is the potential free agency in nine months of Shohei Ohtani, who inspired Preller to learn Japanese several years ago ahead of his sales pitch. Given a second chance to woo Ohtani, Preller would have the universal DH in his pocket, a not-small selling point he lacked when the pitcher-outfielder chose the Angels over the Padres.
For now, there's a rather large Padres season looming.
Assuming an extension isn't negotiated soon, Machado has placed a large bet on himself. That's promising.
Last time Machado entered a season with a pot of free-agent gold riding on it, he played all 162 games and produced what were career-bests in both counting numbers (37 home runs, 107 RBI) and rates (.297 batting average, .367 on-base, .538 slug) in a 2018 season he split with the Orioles and Dodgers.
A comparable repeat performance would qualify as another win-win-win outcome, one the Padres would hope sends them toward a duckboat ride through the East Village.
