The San Diego Padres were the closest thing that baseball had to stopping the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2024. San Diego put up a fight in the National League Divisional Series but eventually fell to its rivals.

Now the Dodgers have done nothing but improve this winter. They’ve added Blake Snell and Roki Sasaki to the starting rotation, not to mention the fact that Shohei Ohtani is returning from Tommy John surgery. Kirby Yates and Tanner Scott join a bullpen that dominated down the stretch as well.

While Los Angeles has done this, San Diego has gone backward. They’ve watched a few players depart in free agency, including Scott to the Dodgers, and the Padres’ players are seemingly getting frustrated, led by star infielder Manny Machado.

Manny Machado’s frustrations could be the beginning of the end of his time with the Padres

“Are we disappointed we haven’t made any moves? Yeah,” Machado said (h/t Marty Caswell.) “I think as a team, you look up there, and you’re a little disappointed that we let some of the guys that were a core group here go elsewhere.”

The Padres have a good reason for not re-signing their core players. It’s not because they don’t value guys like Ha-Seong Kim or Scott. It’s because San Diego has so much money wrapped up in players like Manny Machado and Fernando Tatis Jr. that it can’t afford to make any other moves.

This is the very reason the Padres are reportedly shopping both Michael King and Dylan Cease. With Machado showing signs of frustration, he could join King and Cease on the trade block.

Whether it’s to free up money or because Machado wants to join a team that has more means to win baseball games, it seems like this pairing is trending in the wrong direction. San Diego isn’t shy to deal away its stars.

Now, this isn’t to say Machado is going to force his way out of San Diego and it’s not to say the Padres are going to be upset with him and deal him somewhere else. But it’s certainly a situation to monitor as the Padres aim to clear money from their books.