Addition by Not Signing

During the 2018 NLCS, then-Dodger Manny Machado stood out first by not hustling, then by explaining that he wasn’t a “Johnny Hustle” type of player.  And then the White Sox went after him big time in the offseason, only to have Machado sign a $300 million deal with the Padres.  Their loss, evidently.

 

For anyone who might think otherwise, the story about Machado that ran in The Athletic last week just might change their mind.  A player signed to be the face of a team supposedly on the rise admits, “Strength-wise. I wasn’t there.  My swing wasn’t there.  I got tired.  I got sloppy.  I stopped working, stopped doing things.  I just thought my talent was going to take over.”  Yikes.

 

Machado said all that as a mea culpa, admitting “there’s no excuse” for his actions and rededicating himself to working hard.  That’s nice, but it doesn’t get Andy Green his job back.  The Padres went from playing .500-ball ninety games into the 2019 season to finishing twenty-two games under by year’s end.  Guess who got fired, the manager or the star player?  All I can say is that a team had better do its due diligence before signing any player to a mega-deal.  San Diego obviously did not.

And then I have to wonder what the Sox saw in Machado.  How exactly would he have fit in with the likes of Tim Anderson and Jose Abreu, each a Johnny Hustle in his own way?  Lucky we don’t have to find out.