The 2024 Padres exceeded every reasonable expectation. They cut close to $90 million in payroll, then won 93 games and pushed the National League Pennant-winning Dodgers to the brink of elimination. So, what was the best part of one of the most successful seasons in San Diego baseball history?
"Honestly? Doing it for the best fan base in the country," says general manager A.J. Preller. "It's pretty obvious right now, something very special is going on in San Diego. The fans love this team and the city is just so excited, and I think for us, that's where it stings the most, you know? I think from day one I've spoken about being on that big stage, and that big stage is the World Series. We're, we're not going to be content until we get there as an organization."
Being one game away from reaching the National League Championship Series was not supposed to be in the cards for this club. The fact they put themselves in that position and bring a good chunk of their roster back in 2025 has the Padres thinking big.
"We've got a lot of people very motivated to build on this year," says Preller. "Seeing the excitement and the support the fans give us every single day, you know, at heart I'm a huge baseball fan and I think, just feeling that throughout the city over the last eight months, nine months, their love for this team, this organization, their appreciation, we're going to do everything we can to go get better now."
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The tricky part, of course, is how they go about doing that. They have a few free agents, including fan favorites like outfielder Jurickson Profar and catcher Kyle Higashioka, and will have to figure out how to replace starting pitcher Joe Musgrove for a season as he recovers from elbow reconstruction surgery.
Preller says the club is starting the process of talking to agents and other teams to gauge the interest level of either staying in, or coming to America's Finest City, but the roster won't truly begin to take shape until the MLB General Manager Meetings (November 4-7 in San Antonio, TX).
However, early indications are there are plenty of players that want to be part of that very special something that's happening here.
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"The good news, a lot of those guys indicated that they really enjoy being here," says Preller. "They enjoy playing here in front of our fan base. They love the organization. They love their teammates. I had, like I don't know, five or six different conversations where, to a person, they were saying, hey, this is the best team I've played on. And some guys that have played on 100 win teams, playoff teams, they were like, this is the best team, from an organization standpoint, the best feeling they've had, just being together and enjoying it."
From a payroll standpoint, the Padres are in a good spot. They put themselves back under the Competitive Balance Tax threshold last year, meaning if they choose to go over the cap in 2025 the penalties won't be overly punitive. There have been questions about how the franchise will handle their player expenditures after the tragic passing of Peter Seidler.
Preller says the ownership group is committed to fulfilling Seidler's dream of bringing a trophy to San Diego.
"We're here to win a championship. I think we're going to do it responsibly, but we're looking to win championships. It's not like, hey, you have to be at this price point to do X, Y or Z. There's a lot of different ways to do that. We've done it a lot of different ways over the last five years or so. I think that's what we're going to get to over the next couple of weeks or months, depending on what players are out there and what we need to do."
Free agency begins five days after the end of the World Series and trades can start being consummated the day after the Fall Classic, so we will very likely start to see the 2025 Padres roster taking shape before Thanksgiving.
