Padres and Heather Myers, by the way.
RNP, Oria, Arizona getting
ready for the 2023 season.
Today is the first day all players
report for spring training.
Jake Gariani is there live right now.
Jake. I'm doing the four for Heather
because she's there along with
all the rest of the Padres fans.
What's going on today?
That's right. Everybody has rolled
out here to Peoria to start to
enjoy this new baseball season.
We got a chat with Heather Myers at noon,
so it's great to see her and her husband
and her kids running around out here.
Everyone trying to get autographs
because the season is here.
It is officially upon us now
if you can flashback to 2019,
February to be exact,
Manny Machado signed a 10 year,
$300 million contract.
At the time, it was the largest free agent
contract in North American sports history.
And at the time,
I think everybody thought it would
keep Manny Machado in a Padres
uniform for the rest of his career.
But in that deal there was
an opt out after five years,
which is after this season,
the 2023 season.
Manny has already said earlier this camp
that he will indeed opt out of that contract,
making him a free agent.
The question is,
can the Padres resign him after that?
Today we got a chat with Manny and a couple
other fellas talking about that deal.
Business business, business, business.
There's there's no hard feelings you know
we're gonna go move forward and you know
I'm going to go out and play baseball,
perform and that's my job and that's my duty.
And you know like I've always said it's
it's it's about it's about the fans
going out there and performing and
bringing attention to the city. From
your perspective how hard is it
for these guys to balance making
money in a very short career.
If you really think about it and
keeping fans happy and people happy.
I I don't think it's it's that tough.
You know obviously there are some difficult.
Decisions that have to be made at times.
Often those will play out publicly
in a way that probably isn't
best for everybody involved.
But that's just the reality of the business.
I would never knock anybody for,
you know, taking a move to to get
more money and support their family.
So yeah, I would love to have them here.
I hope he sticks around.
I hope we get something worked out.
Look, when Manny or anybody
else gets into the batters box
or steps across the white line,
they're not thinking about their contract.
That's just not realistic.
He wouldn't be able to hit a fastball
if he was thinking about his contract
when he's in the batters box.
So I don't, I don't think it'll
have any impact on the field.
Some of these guys are
making now around the league.
You know he's been every every good
if not better than all those guys.
So he deserves, he deserves
to get what he's worth.
Is one of the absolute best
players in baseball and the Padres
are better for having him here.
I I'm just not concerned at all
about that kind of thing happening
in the background because that's
where it will be in the background.
Like I told my agent and I told told,
told the organization.
I said I'm about going out
there and playing baseball
and doing what I can control,
which is going out there being the best
player I could possibly be and and.
You know, try to lead this team
again to to another championship
and and even even further.
Now, Marcella and Carla,
I want to make it very clear that
this really doesn't come as a
big surprise that he opted out.
This happens often when you're playing
as good as Manny is in their paying,
as good as the people in baseball are paying,
of course he's going to try and go out
and get more money. The question is,
when do you have enough money?
When does the hometown
discount fall into place?
Clearly Manny wants to go get
some more money, and that's fine.
Like you have a short career
to make that amount of money.
The question is again,
can the Padres resign him?
Can they get him back here?
They got some other big fish to pay, right?
Juan Soto eventually coming down the pipe.
Shohei Otani's gonna be a fridge.
And at some point,
so it'll be interesting to see what happens.
But Manny has made it very clear. Look,
it's over with the contract talk right now.
Now the focus is 2023.
We're here to win baseball games.
And as you heard Jesse Agler say there,
too,
it's all about baseball now when
they step in between the lines,
you know, I don't.
I don't feel like many people hold it against
him that he would exercise the option.
Nobody's arguing that he's not worth
more money in this marketplace.
But he talked about the fans.
I just wonder if he realizes how much
of a distraction it is for fans.
That he started talking
about this before the season,
I don't think anybody would have
held it against him if at the
end of the season he said.
Yeah, I'm opting out.
I wanna see what I'm worth here.
But now going into the season,
it's like, why
put it out there before
the season even got going?
Well, I'm sure you both
know how leverage works.
And it's not a bad thing to have
the fans clamoring and talking about
wanting to resign somebody when
it comes to the negotiation table.
Right. If everybody wants him back
and and look the the front office,
here's what the fans want.
I mean it's not a bad seed to plant.
We'll go out and play baseball now.
But but that seed is out there and and
Manny knows he's going to get paid now,
if you can get a little extra leverage
by bringing it up a little bit earlier,
so be it. He did set.
He did set a deadline, too,
saying he wanted to try and get this
deal done before spring training.
It came and went,
and now we're here doing baseball
seems a little calculated, but,
you know, let's focus on the season,
and that storyline will kind of ebb and flow.
I'm getting good luck with that, Marcella.
Peoria knows we're gonna be talking
about this all season. Good to see Jake.
We'll check in with you again.