Earlier this spring, as San Diego Padres players were starting to dream about just how transformative the 2019 season could be for a franchise in eternal hibernation, Manny Machado and Eric Hosmer set up a dinner with Ron Fowler. Machado is the Padres' newly minted $300 million third baseman, Hosmer their $144 million first baseman and Fowler the owner who greenlit their signings. Machado and Hosmer had a proposal.
As counterintuitive as it was for the Padres, the definition of a small-market team, to guarantee almost half a billion dollars to two free agents, what Machado and Hosmer were asking was nearly as gauche: Open the season with 20-year-old Fernando Tatis Jr.