The goddamn Padres are in on Manny Machado

It’s nearly February and Manny Machado doesn’t have a contract yet. Major League Baseball teams are so adverse to winning that the idea of adding one of the best all-around players to hit the free agent market (at the age of 26, nonetheless) in recent memory is completely off-putting.

Teams are so reluctant to throwing cash at Machado that the goddamn San Diego Padres are now pursuing the free agent. What has this world come to?! The Padres? The Padres! Yes, the Padres, baseball’s version of a retirement home where players go to disappear into irrelevance, have jumped into the mix for Machado’s services.

The Padres, as I’ve already stated, are the pinnacle of irrelevance in baseball. The team has made the playoffs just twice since the turn of the century and they haven’t won a playoff round since the late 1990s. The most interesting thing they’ve done in the past decade-and-a-bit is make the playoffs despite having a whopping 82-80 record. Actually, maybe their most interesting anecdote in the 21st century is being on the wrong side of Matt Holliday’s slide in Game 163 in 2007.

Anyways, if the goddamn Padres can be in on Machado, there’s no excuse for the Jays not to be in the mix too.

The Padres and Jays are in similar situations right now. San Diego owns baseball’s top farm system, with top prospects Fernando Tatis Jr. and Luis Urias ready to make the jump to the big league level soon. Beyond the inexplicable mega-deal worth $144 million they handed out to Eric Hosmer last winter, the Padres have a wide open payroll to work with. They’re a team, given the quality and depth of their system, who could be on the rise soon, and adding a stud like Machado would help the cause.

Does this not sound exactly like the Blue Jays? Toronto doesn’t have a system as good as San Diego’s right now, but they do have one of the better crops of young talent led by Vlad Guerrero Jr. set to open up a contention window in the next few years. Like I stated with Bryce Harper, adding a high-quality free agent at a lower-than-expected price would be a game-changer for Toronto’s rebuild. They won’t have a chance in 2021 to add a player as good as Machado for the price he’s being driven down to by this apathetic market.

I mean, come on. You can’t let yourself get outbid by the goddamn Padres, right? RIGHT?!?!!