Everything is awful.

The Dodgers are signing everyone, paying them whatever and however they want, while the Padres have done virtually nothing to improve their roster this offseason.

And on his way out the door, Jurickson Profar, a big part of the heart of last year’s team, inadvertently poured kerosene on this dumpster that is ablaze.

“Obviously the Padres have some issue with the ownership and all that,” Profar said in a video call with reporters following his signing with the Atlanta Braves. “It was difficult to go back (to San Diego).”

That brought a chorus of amens from those who believe the current group running the Padres — and the dispute over who will run the Padres in the future — is the cause of all that is supposedly wrong with the franchise.

But … Whoa! Whoa! Hold on.

Can we think about this for a bit?

There are some realities that must be addressed here.

The Padres have immediate challenges ahead, for sure. The stillness of their offseason is a bit unnerving. They seem to have no starting left fielder. They also need a first baseman or a designated hitter, another catcher and at least one more starting pitcher.

However, it is January. The Padres’ payroll is sitting at around $200 million, and that is probably about where it will be by Opening Day.

That’s right. There is no telling how much other teams will spend and, thus, where their payroll will rank when the season begins, but multiple people with knowledge of their plans say the Padres expect to be in (or close to) the top 10 among MLB team payrolls this season.

That would seem counter to the narrative that the Padres are divesting all hope.

Now, there is some maneuvering to do to fit what the Padres need with what they have. They don’t seem capable of adding without also subtracting, which is why they have been talking about trades involving Dylan Cease, Luis Arraez, Jake Cronenworth, Robert Suarez and untold other pieces.

This is how A.J. Preller operates. Plan A has six subsets. Plan B has 12. Plan C requires an understanding of advanced calculus. And so on.

There was a lot of dealing last year after January. There almost always is with Preller.

And shouldn’t that be a component of any conversation about the state of the roster?

The Padres’ president of baseball operations hit on virtually every swing he took last season. That success will be difficult to replicate in 2025. But Preller merits the benefit of the doubt based on his past machinations — both when the Padres were spending a lot (2020-23) and when they were reining in the spending (2024). Fans can at least be confident that Preller will find some creative way to try to make the team better.

At this time last year, the Padres did not have a left fielder. They did not have a center fielder that we knew of. Dylan Cease was on the White Sox. Luis Arraez was on the Marlins.

By season’s end, with a payroll some $100 million lower than the previous year, the Padres won 93 games and advanced to the second round of the playoffs, where they were beaten by the eventual World Series champions.

Now, they are going to bump up payroll and go for it again, fielding a team with largely the same core as last year.

This might be viewed as progress. Or at least a continued adherence to the Padres’ long-stated vision of fielding a team capable of making the postseason every year.

That the Padres have been pathetic for much of their existence does not matter. Their past should not factor into present expectations. The team declared five years ago that this was its window of contention, and fans have the right to demand that it be so.

But it might do some good to pause and consider the wonder of a team that has what is believed to be the worst TV deal in the league and that for much of its existence had a payroll near the bottom of the league and that now plans to be in (or near) the top third in MLB payroll.

Between 2007 through 2019, the Padres ranked in the bottom third in payroll 11 times. They jumped to 11th in the COVID-shortened 2020 season, and in Peter Seidler’s three seasons as control person ranked eighth, fifth and third.

Seidler, who died in November 2023, can be considered the father of hope — and, for better and worse, expectations — among Padres fans. His authorization of big expenditures electrified and multiplied a fanbase.

But Seidler always said what he was doing was an experiment to see what was possible. The short-term spending was never meant to be long-term.

This is not revisionist history. The Padres were talking about this before the 2023 season.

“To get to that optimal state in our market, it is going to require a greater contribution coming from our farm system,” Padres CEO Erik Greupner said in January 2023. “We’re going to need to have a payroll, have a team that is year in and year out supportable in our market without having to continue to increase spending on payroll.”

Notice that was said before the season in which the Padres had the third-highest payroll in the major leagues and while Peter Seidler was in charge of the team.

Certainly, the Padres have work to do. And if they don’t do it, there will rightfully be a lot of upset people.

But to be upset over what might be as if it already was seems like wasted energy. (Similar to how getting excited about all the moves made before the 2021 and ‘23 seasons turned out to be misspent exaltation, a mere prelude to disappointment.)

Fans can — and probably will — be mad at the current team chairman (Eric Kutsenda) and/or the man who appears set to take over as team chairman (John Seidler) at some point. That comes with their job title. But with the team coming off a playoff appearance and entering a season in which payroll will be increased by more than 20% and without considering the circumstances, January anger seems misdirected.

And it is, by the way, fanciful to think that Sheel Seidler taking over — as her lawsuit contends she should — would be a fix-all.

Her husband was not a billionaire. Neither is she. So, no, she won’t be financing a $300 million payroll. Peter Seidler spent millions of his own money to help finance the spending increases of 2021 to ’23, but he also funded the cause by making a capital call on the franchise’s other owners and amassing enough debt that the Padres got in trouble with MLB.

The reality is the Padres are here — with little financial flexibility to help them make significant additions — for a variety of factors that have nothing to do with who is currently running the team.

Peter Seidler was the driving force behind some signings that put the Padres in this position. There should be a statue of the man in Gallagher Square. The “PS” in a heart should be a permanent fixture at various locales inside Petco Park, if not also on the Padres uniforms. Let us all forever cherish his memory and offer praise for what he made seem possible.

Seidler did a lot of good with the approach that resulted in the Padres committing nearly $1 billion in long-term contracts to six players between August 2022 and March 2023.

Those deals may end up being the catalysts to unprecedented success by the Padres. One World Series trophy for a franchise without one would be priceless.

The gamble paid off in one of the finest seasons in team history in 2024. It paid off in exciting a fanbase to the tune of attendance record after attendance record the past few years.

It did not pay off in an 82-80, playoff-less 2023.

And there is no doubt the commitments have squeezed the budget going forward.

To make the investment worth it, the individual players have to be worth it.

If Xander Bogaerts (due $25 million this season and $225 million through 2033) and Cronenworth (due $11 million this season and more than $72 million over the next six years) can have the kind of seasons the Padres expected when they guaranteed them all that money, then the club’s inability to spend so freely now will be less disconcerting.

The same goes for Manny Machado, who is due $13 million this season and $314 million over the next nine years. If he can hit well as he did the final 3½ months of last season, he might just cement a Hall of Fame career by riding in the lead float of a parade. If Yu Darvish, due $21 million this season and $67 million over the next four years, can pitch like he did in the final month of last season, the Padres will be better off for having a pitcher closing in on 40 years old.

So let’s just focus on what is real.

The ownership situation is ugly. It just is. Another of San Diego’s sports franchises — another of its civic treasures — is embroiled in a mess of uncertainty. That is a shame. It has to be considered so, regardless of which side one thinks is right in Sheel Seidler vs. the Seidler brothers.

But whoever was controlling this team at this time was going to have to deal with this financial situation.

And the financial situation doesn’t seem all that bad, all things considered.

Originally Published: January 25, 2025 at 3:52 PM PST