Pending Padres Sale Should Top Mark For Purchase Of Ballclub

Despite the uncertainty, the Padres have been baseball’s hottest team, winning eight games in a row through Thursday night. In their division, the National League West, the only team with a better record is the World Champion Los Angeles Dodgers.

The Padres began life as an expansion team in 1969 but have never won a World Series. Although they won pennants in 1984 and 1998, they lost both Fall Classic meetings, against Detroit in 1984 and the New York Yankees in 1998.

Long considered a small-market team, the Padres surprised the baseball world with a spending spree under Peter Seidler, acquiring Manny Machado, Xander Bogaerts, and Michael King while extending the contract of homegrown Fernando Tatís, Jr.

The Face of the Franchise, Tatís, Jr. signed a 14-year, $340 million extension in February 2021 that carries through the 2034 season. The deal included a $10 million signing bonus, a full no-trade clause through 2028, and deferred dollars, with his annual salary rising to $36 million from 2029-34.

Lockout Worries

Whomever wins the franchise will inherit a payroll estimated by Spotrac at $255,992,138, ranking seventh among the 30 teams. Whether the Padres will continue their free-spending ways remains to be seen, however, especially with major changes likely in the next Basic Agreement between owners and players.

That agreement expires in December, when owners are likely to push for a salary cap – an idea players despise even though the other major sports leagues all operate that way.

Sportico places the value of the Padres at $2.3 billion, slightly higher than the Forbes estimate of $1.9 billion, according to Dennis Lin of The Athletic.

With four wealthy bidders involved, the sale price of the Padres is virtually certain to be higher – even with a lockout looming. When the last Basic Agreement expired in 2021, a lockout by owners created a nuclear winter for baseball that wiped out the winter meetings, froze trades and free agency, and erased part of the spring training exhibition game schedule.

The Padres entered play Friday with a record of 13-6, a game-and-a-half behind the Dodgers.

This article was originally published on Forbes.com