fenwaysouth posted:After the contract is signed is when I can feel a little bit of empathy...when he has to take the field to earn that ginormous contract. Machado is a tool. Now he is a rich tool with with talent and skills on the baseball field. The problem is he is not going to be able to live up to that money because there is no supporting cast and nobody to protect him in the lineup with the possible exception of Hosmer who has a decent eye at the plate. Plus Petco is not a hitters ball park, and not a long ball friendly stadium. Nobody on the current Padres team is hitting over .300. It is going to be a brutal year for Machado at the plate.
I'm not saying they can't screw it up, and I'm not saying that Milb performance gurantees MLB performance, but seems like everyone in baseball says that the Padres have the top-ranked farm system, so I think that it would be reasonable for Machado to expect to play for a contending team, if not this year, then very soon. And it's not like the NL West isn't ripe for the taking.