Manny Machado told an interviewer recently that the San Diego Padres tried to land Aaron Judge in the 2022 offseason, and that the club briefly imagined a lineup built around four superstar position players.
Machado said it would have been striking to see Judge wear a Padre uniform, but he added he never believed Judge was going to leave New York and thought the Yankees would keep him. He said the idea of Judge in San Diego was part of a larger, if speculative, vision that would have paired himself with Juan Soto, Fernando Tatis and Judge — a four‑star grouping Machado said the Padres’ ownership would not have given up on pursuing.
The fact at the center of Machado’s comments is simple: Judge was widely pursued in the 2022 offseason, including by San Diego, and he ultimately returned to the New York Yankees. The Padres, meanwhile, made a separate splash that winter, signing Xander Bogaerts as the club continued to chase high‑impact talent.
Machado framed the Judge pursuit as an example of how far San Diego’s front office was willing to go. He said he knew Judge probably wouldn’t leave the Yankees, that the roster picture that winter would have included him, Juan Soto and Fernando Tatis, and he suggested ownership’s ambition was relentless — that Peter Seidler, in his view, would not have stopped trying to assemble the best four‑player group available.
Those assertions are weighty because they turn a single signing hunt into a measure of organizational intent. The idea of linking four marquee players on one roster is rare in the modern game; Machado’s description that the Padres envisioned himself alongside Soto, Tatis and Judge puts a name and shape on a strategy the club pursued through free agency and trades in recent years. For fans clicking through scores or searching "padres game today," Machado’s recollection recasts a past offseason as a what‑if that still matters to the franchise’s identity.
There is a built‑in tension in Machado’s version of events. He says the Padres were aggressive and that Seidler wouldn’t stop trying, yet the concrete result from that offseason for San Diego was not Judge but Bogaerts — a major addition but one that left the lineup’s star quartet an unrealized possibility. Machado also said he believed Judge was never going to leave New York, a reality that undercuts the narrative of a fully achievable four‑star alignment.
That gap — ambition versus outcome — is the story’s friction. It explains why Machado’s remarks matter now: they underline how close the Padres came to a different roster architecture and why the team’s subsequent moves have been viewed through the lens of compensating for what it could not secure. The pursuit of Judge was part of a broader pattern, yet the end result that winter reshaped the club’s actual blueprint.
The most consequential unanswered question emerging from Machado’s comments is this: will San Diego’s front office continue to chase that kind of star‑heavy construction, or has the club moved to a different model after the 2022 offseason’s mixed results? Machado’s account shows intent; what remains unclear is whether that intent will translate into another attempt to assemble a comparable four‑player core.
