Padres: All aboard the hype train in San Diego

The sun is shining, Fernando Tatis Jr. will be with the Padres for the next 14 years and San Diego has its eyes on the its first World Series championship in the not-so-distant future. Life is good.

Seriously, I don’t know that any fanbase in Major League Baseball has more to be excited about than Padres fans. Your front office kicked down the door to the offseason, trading for two aces, a very solid mid-rotation guy in Joe Musgrove, brought back super utilityman Jurickson Profar, landed the top IFA in Ha-Seong Kim and then added some backend bullpen arms for the hell of it.

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Oh, and if all of that didn’t quite do it for you, San Diego kicked off spring training by signing the face of baseball to what I believe will end up being a pretty team-friendly 14-year, $340 million contract.

Let’s. Get. Hyped.

For those of you who are warning the end time are nigh and the Padres will be financially handicapped right as they enter a window of contention because of the deals they have Manny Machado and Tatis Jr. on, team chairman Peter Seidler strongly disagrees. He doesn’t see San Diego as a mid-market team. He sees it as one that’s worthy of a championship-caliber team for years to come.

“We are not a small-market franchise,” he said after the Tatis Jr. extension. “… I’ll speak for the people of San Diego: We’re the eighth-largest city in America. There’s nothing we can’t do.”

He’s right, you know. Seidler’s got the checkbook to write whatever checks he’s so inclined to cash – so that’s not a concern. And people are talking about the Tatis Jr. extension like it’ll force Preller to trade his blue-chip prospects to shore up the pitching staff. Did you ever think the guys they traded for (Yu Darvish and Blake Snell) were brought in to A) lead the rotation in the short-term and B) help pass the torch to the crop of young arms banging on the door?

Look. Being from Chicago and living as a lifelong Cubs fan, I know what it’s like to constantly have doubt. But this is one of those very, very rare times as a sports fan where Friar Faithful can exhale, let go of their doubt and disbelief and go all-in. There’s nothing better than that feeling when years of faith are rewarded with a ring: and that’s exactly what I believe is waiting out there for the San Diego Padres.