Manny Machado says the San Diego Padres were serious about chasing Aaron Judge in the 2022 offseason, and he believes owner Peter Seidler would not have stopped trying to land the slugger. Speaking recently with insider Buster Olney, Machado said Judge was never going to leave New York, but the Padres still pushed hard enough that the idea of him in brown and gold lingered through the winter.
Judge ultimately returned to the New York Yankees, but Machado’s account gives a clearer picture of how far the Padres were willing to go. He said the club could have rolled out a lineup that included himself, Juan Soto, Fernando Tatis and Judge, a four-star group that would have been one of the most imposing in the sport.
That kind of ambition was no outlier for San Diego. The Padres have been aggressive in free agency and trades over the past few years, and they signed Xander Bogaerts in that same 2022 offseason. Machado’s remarks turn a familiar team-building push into a more vivid what-if: not just Judge’s fit in San Diego, but the scale of a roster that might have brought four of the game’s biggest names together.
The catch is that the dream never had a real landing spot. Machado said he never believed Judge would leave New York, and the Yankees kept him anyway. What remains is the picture of how close the Padres were willing to come to another splash, and how much bigger the lineup might have looked if the pursuit had gone differently.
