Alden Gonzalez, writing for ESPN (paywall):

From the start of Monday to the end of Wednesday, 20 major league free agents agreed to contracts totaling nearly $1.6 billion. The vast majority did so while outshooting their projections. And if there was one phrase that could encapsulate the week’s event, it was that one – muttered so often by front-office members, agents, scouts, coaches and media members that it might as well have been part of the branding. ‌The winter meetings, presented by Holy S—.

One of the topics I’ve stayed away from on my website is sports. Why? This idiotic idea that I might alienate people with it. But sports has been such a big part of my life this year that I can’t not write about it anymore.

I’m from San Diego. Born and raised. My team is the San Diego Padres. They’ve been my team since my childhood, since I went to my first baseball game in ‘96 and saw Ken Caminiti hit a home run, since I saw them make it to the World Series in ‘98 (and get swept by those damn Yankees), since I saw Tony Gwynn get his 3,000th hit. They’re my team, and oh my goodness, wasn’t this year so damn special? First, we signed Juan Soto, Josh Hader, Josh Bell, and Brandon Drury, then we lost Tatis Jr. to a stupid PED suspension, then we beat the Mets and the Dodgers to make it to the NLCS.

And now we’ve signed Xander fucking Bogaerts. These aren’t my childhood Dads. If I had children, these would be their Dads, and that’s amazing.

$1.6 billion, $280 million to sign Bogaerts. Wow.

The Padres began the week with a payroll that was already projected to surpass $200 million and stood dangerously close to exceeding MLB’s luxury-tax threshold for a third consecutive year. (“Where are they getting all this money?” one agent asked.) Then they pursued Turner aggressively, made a late – and highly competitive – offer to Judge and blew past the Red Sox for Bogaerts, who will join a dynamic lineup featuring Juan Soto, Manny Machado, Jake Cronenworth and, eventually, Fernando Tatis Jr. Bogaerts is an imperfect fit, no doubt, but the Padres believe they have the roster versatility and the payroll flexibility to make it work.

“Where are they getting all this money?” Peter Seidler and his ownership group is treating this team like the investment it is. During Bogaerts welcome ceremony in San Diego, Peter said,

I’m financially trained, I have a budget in mind up there somewhere, and I think budgets get better when you win world championships.

San Diego has never won a major sports world championship. I think if they win one, they will have all the money they need to make up for these signings and more.

Let’s Fucking Go San Diego!

Alissa Wilkinson, the film critic and culture reporter for Vox, on why baseball gave her a different narrative to follow and why she needed it:

Coming back to watching it this season feels like reinserting myself into a glorious story. I needed a reminder of where I’ve come from, and who I am, and how far I’ve gone.

[…]

Watching baseball, right now, I’m reminded of two things. This part of my life is part of a bigger story I’ve been living for a long time. And as much as I love narrative media and great stories, life is a lot more like an open-ended game where the end isn’t written yet. That’s frightening, but it’s also invigorating. A win is just as likely as a loss, and nobody loses forever.

This story resonated with me because it mirrors what I’ve been going through the past few weeks. Since I’ve found myself with a bit more time than I’m used to, I’ve decided to start following my hometown baseball team again, the San Diego Padres.

When I was a kid, all I ever did was follow the Padres. I remember I would steal every copy of the San Diego Union Tribune just so I can nab the Sports section and cut out the box score and the story to whatever game the Padres played the day before. I remember how this was one of the first uses of a notebook for me, and I loved it. I remember Tony Gwynn and Ken Caminiti and Steve Finley and Greg Vaughn and Wally Joyner and Bruce Bochy and whoever else played for them when I was a kid. I remember the 1998 season and the heartbreaking World Series sweep by the Yankees. I remember tuning into every game I could while in high school, and I remember tuning out once I got to college. Thank goodness because the mid-2000 Padres were awful.

Over the past few weeks, I started to watch game highlights on the MLB YouTube channel and feeling that spark of interest return. I love seeing the Slam Diego Padres again, win or lose, and I even started to read Kevin Acee in the Tribune again. This all feels familiar, like I’m dipping back into a narrative of my life that never ended. I haven’t subscribed to MLB.tv like Alissa did, but goddammit, I’ve felt like it over the past week. I, too, am feeling a bit apathetic to TV and movies, and maybe what I need is sports. Hell, I even tuned into the Indy 500 for a bit yesterday because I needed something that wasn’t TV or movies, a story to follow¹ that I wanted to see through.

Part of the reason why I had stopped following sports, though, was the painful heartbreak of being a sports fan from San Diego. The Padres haven’t been to the World Series since 1998, and don’t even get me started on the Chargers. But maybe I need that heartbreak again, the feelings of ups and downs that sports gives people. Who knows, maybe the Padres have a shot this year.