Padres Owner Spent Big—and Leaves an Expensive Legacy After His Death
Jared Diamond
7–9 minutes

Peter Seidler wanted to win the World Series more than anything. It
would be nice to believe that every baseball team owner shared that
sentiment, but nobody proved it more than Seidler in the way that truly
matters: with his wallet.

Seidler became the controlling owner of the San Diego Padres following
the 2020 season and fundamentally reshaped the idea of what a
small-market franchise could be. While his peers retrenched and cried
poverty, Seidler spent gigantic amounts of money to attract superstar
talent that never before would’ve imagined joining a team like the Padres.

By last season, the Padres had a larger payroll than anybody in the game
other than the New York Mets and the New York Yankees. Their roster
featured five players that Seidler had signed to guaranteed contracts
worth $100 million or more.

“I kind of like spending money,” Seidler told the San Diego
Union-Tribune last year. “You can’t take it with you.”

Those words took on a new meaning last week, when Seidler died at the
age of 63 after battling an unspecified illness for several months. His
passing sparked a period of mourning across the baseball world and in
San Diego, where Seidler was a fierce advocate for solving homelessness
in the region. He never saw the realization of his dream: to bring a
long-awaited championship to the city.

Seidler’s death recontextualizes the past few years for the team. It
tells the story of a man dedicated to using his remaining time to pursue
the championship that Padres fans wanted, no matter the cost. His legacy
resembles that of Mike Ilitch, the longtime Detroit Tigers owner who
invested enormously on players late in his life but fell short of the
title he so desperately coveted.

In his final years, Seidler rattled the baseball industry, transformed
the Padres into a massive attraction—and potentially left the
organization in a complicated place for the future.

Seidler, the grandson of former Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers owner
Walter O’Malley, had dealt with health problems. He had Type 1 diabetes
and twice survived non-Hodgkin lymphoma. The Padres said in September
that Seidler had undergone a medical procedure the month before and
wouldn’t return to Petco Park that season.

Those who knew him say that after his second bout with cancer, Seidler’s
outlook on life changed, as if he had become more acutely aware that he
wouldn’t live forever. And he lived accordingly.

“He was all in,” said Michael Brunker, a member of the “Tuesday Group,”
a collection of San Diego business and civic leaders who would meet
weekly in Seidler’s office to discuss ideas about how to reduce
homelessness. “And everybody saw it.”

By scooping up ultraexpensive free agents like the sand at Pacific
Beach, Seidler embarrassed his fellow owners. Organizations like the
Padres are supposed to complain about the outsize budgets of teams like
the Dodgers and Boston Red Sox. Instead, Seidler outspent them, forcing
bean-counting executives everywhere to answer questions about why their
teams couldn’t operate that way if the little old Padres could.

Last winter, Colorado Rockies owner Dick Monfort decried the Padres’
spending spree, saying it “puts a lot of pressure” on his team and that
he didn’t “100% agree” with what San Diego did. Commissioner Rob Manfred
appeared to question the Padres as well at a news conference during
spring training.

“The trick for smaller markets has always been sustainability. Hats off
to Peter Seidler. He’s made a massive financial commitment, personally,
to make this all happen,” Manfred said. “The question becomes, how long
can you continue to do that? And what happens when you have to go
through a rebuild?”

Seidler shrugged off those questions. “Putting a great and winning team
on the field in San Diego year after year,” Seidler said in response.
“is sustainable.”

“He just wanted to win,” said Scott Boras, the agent for infielder
Xander Bogaerts, who signed a $280 million deal with the Padres last
December. “He wanted to bring a reputation for the brand of the Padres
and to San Diego where they are a great team year after year after year.”

The Padres have reaped some of the rewards—and seen some of the dangers.
They captivated the city by advancing to the National League
Championship Series in 2022. Along the way, they knocked out the
Dodgers, the rival that Seidler once described as “the dragon up the
freeway that we’re trying to slay.”

The fans in San Diego responded this season, storming the gates of the
ballpark to see players like Bogaerts, Manny Machado, Fernando Tatis Jr.
and Juan Soto. The Padres finished with a record home attendance of
nearly 3.3 million, second in the major leagues behind only the Dodgers.
The old Padres had one of the lowest payrolls in baseball every year and
received revenue sharing money. In 2023, they were a revenue-sharing
payer for the first time.

There have been problems, however. The team unexpectedly struggled on
the field this season, finishing just 82-80 and failing to qualify for
the postseason despite outscoring their opponents by 104 runs.
Inexplicably, the Padres went 2-12 in extra innings and 9-23 in one-run
games.

Meanwhile, the Padres lost their regional sports network in May,
prompting MLB to take over their local broadcasts—an arrangement that
will continue in 2024. Diamond Sports Group, which was supposed to pay
the Padres $52 million in 2023 for the right to air games, declined to
make a contractually obligated payment as it moves through Chapter 11
bankruptcy proceedings. MLB subsidized 80% of what the Padres were owed,
though that will not be the case next season.

In September, the Padres took out a $50 million loan to cover their
end-of-season expenses. Erik Greupner, the team’s CEO, said the Padres
“established a capital plan for 2023 with our ownership group and lender
partners and are operating our business in accordance with that plan.”

Even before Seidler’s death, the Padres indicated that they would lower
their 2024 payroll from about $250 million to closer to $200 million.
That could lead to them trading Soto, a star outfielder estimated to
command a salary of $30 million or more next season. It could also make
it more difficult for them to retain ace pitcher Blake Snell, now a free
agent after winning the NL Cy Young Award.

Ultimately, the plan is for the Padres to remain in the Seidler family.

Speaking at a conference earlier this year, Seidler vowed that “there
will never be another fire sale in San Diego.”

For now, Eric Kutsenda, a co-founder of Seidler’s private equity firm,
is acting as the Padres’ interim control person. Kutsenda had taken a
larger role in the team as the season went on and will now guide the
Padres into whatever comes next.

After pausing all nonessential business for a few days in the wake of
Seidler’s death, the Padres took a step toward the future on Tuesday.
They hired Mike Shildt as their new manager, hoping that he will be the
one to lead the Padres to the moment Seidler had promised would
eventually arrive: a day when “the baseball gods will smile on the San
Diego Padres.”

“Peter’s message of being best in class, we’ll make sure that we follow
through on that,” Padres general manager A.J. Preller said Tuesday. “I’m
looking forward to the baseball gods smiling down many moments this year
on our club.”

Write to Jared Diamond at jared.diamond@wsj.com