Leaving the Major League Baseball winter meetings empty-handed can feel worse than it actually is. What it’s not is the equivalent of waking up on Christmas morning to find coal in your stocking and no gifts under the tree.
Teams that sign free agents or make blockbuster trades during the few days everyone of importance in the MLB universe congregates under one luxury hotel roof get out-sized applause for their moves. Reporters dutifully type up the winners and losers on their flights home.
So, yes, the San Diego Padres and Arizona Diamondbacks appear to be scuffling at the moment. Inertia isn’t tolerated by fan bases, especially when their division competitors — the Dodgers and San Francisco Giants — are signing big names and holding splashy press conferences.
But the winter meetings are a snapshot, not a jury trial. Spring training begins in two months and opening day is nearly four months away. Plenty of free agents remain available — 197 at last count. Names big and small dangle as trade bait.
With that caveat, let’s explore why the Padres and Diamondbacks have stood pat.
In the Padres’ case, their unbridled spending under the late owner Peter Seidler seems to have hit its limit.
They were onlookers during the Juan Soto sweepstakes, with only memories of him posting in all 162 games in brown and gold in 2023 to tease them. They seem to be having buyer’s remorse at signing infielder Xander Bogaerts to an 11-year, $280-million deal that runs through 2033.
So they mostly sat through the meetings at the Hilton Anatole Hotel in Dallas reportedly fielding offers for starter Dylan Cease and three-time batting champion Luis Arráez — both entering their final year of arbitration before becoming free agents — while making it clear to suitors that Bogaerts is available.
Cease, especially, could fetch solid prospects in return, a startling turnabout for the Padres, who in recent years have been the ones shoveling promising minor leaguers from their fertile farm system to others in exchange for win-now veterans. It was the only way to keep up with, and occasionally surpass, the Dodgers.
“Every year, you always have a budget that you’ve got to be in line with,” Padres president…