San Diego Padres third baseman Manny Machado has always been a player who speaks his mind, regardless of the issue, and his comments after arriving in Arizona for the start of spring training made it clear that that hasn’t changed.
Machado spoke out about a couple of issues—specifically, the Los Angeles Dodgers’ spending and the signing of controversial new teammate Nick Castellanos, the oufielder who was sent packing by the Philadelphia Phillies after a bizarre incident when Castellanos brought beer into an active clubhouse after being pulled for a defensive replacement by Phillies manager Rob Thomson.
The third baseman also laced his Dodgers comments with multiple F-bombs and expletives, which isn’t exactly a new tactic for the outspoken infielder, but of course they’re edited appropriately.
"I f---ing love it," Machado said Sunday from Padres camp in a piece written by Jesse Rogers of ESPN. "Every team should be doing it. That s--- is f---ing great for the game."
The R-rated parts of Machado’s comments are probably an indicator that Machado doesn’t love the competitive balance part of all this as much as he says he does, but he did clarify them in a way that aligns with the stance of most players.
"There should not be a cap," Machado said. "There is a lot of money being made. Look what's gone on within the game the last five years. It's been great. A lot of teams have the ability to do what the Dodgers are doing. We started it a few years ago with [former owner] Peter [Seidler].
"Everyone can do it. It's just a matter of whether they want to or not."
Machado also has a sharp sense of humor that frequently comes through, and it surfaced in his comments about Castellanos, whom the third baseman has known since they were kids growing up in Miami.
He started with the generic comments about Castellanos being a teammate who would now be embraced by himself and the rest of the Padres, then moved on to offer his opinion about the financial part of the transaction. Machado referred to his childhood friend as “a $20 million player for pennies on the dollar,” then followed with an assessment of his GM: “That deserves an extension for A.J. [Preller].”
Machado’s colorful candor plays up the point behind all this, which is that what felt like a quiet spring training a couple of weeks ago has now filled up with multiple spring-training storylines. Preller is trying to thread a needle, baseball-wise, by filling multiple holes with some marginal signings, and the Castellanos signing indicates that he’s still not afraid to shy away from controversy.
We still don’t know what any of this is going to look like on the field, but it’s a welcome change after a boring, static offseason that was mostly about the lack of moves and the impending sale of the team that put a straightjacket on Preller’s ability to spend and make moves to improve the team.