McGarnagle
Yes.
- Aug 5, 2017
- 30,302
- 41,551
As much as we all want to dump on ownership for it, the truth is more nuanced and it comes down to how you interpret smart decision/dumb decision, short term vs. long term vs. big picture, etc.
In a baseball sense, watching your homegrown all-star shortstop walk sucks and makes the team worse. No doubt about that. However, the contract the Padres gave him was absurd, inefficient, and may be an anchor on them in 11 years. The however to the however is the question of whether it's justifiable to be locked into bad money at the end of a long term contract to ensure you get the production during the early part of the deal when you want to compete, and whether the extra millions thrown in at the end are worth it for what it does for morale and public relations. You can't put a price on team morale and positive feelings in the fanbase and media, especially when the ownership group was already facing plenty of criticism for their level of commitment to the franchise headed into the offseason.
In sum, the reaction has been largely negative even though we admit that the Padres gave Xander way too much term and money and from a strictly financial sense that's a bad contract.
