Manny Machado Says Padres Will 'Grow' from Missing MLB Playoffs Despite $258M Payroll

Star third baseman Manny Machado suggested Friday that he believes missing the playoffs this season could prove to be a positive learning experience for the San Diego Padres moving forward.

According to ESPN, Machado attempted to be upbeat after the Padres were officially eliminated from postseason contention Friday, saying: "We did what we were supposed to do, but a little too late. We're going to grow from this. ... We're capable of playing better baseball than we did this year."

San Diego defeated the Chicago White Sox 3-2 on Friday to improve to 80-80 on the season, but the Miami Marlins beat the Pittsburgh Pirates 4-3 for their 83rd win, knocking the Padres from wild-card contention.

At the start of the season, the Padres had the third-highest payroll in MLB behind only the New York Mets and New York Yankees. All three teams missed the playoffs, marking the first time the teams with the three highest payrolls did so in the same season since 2008 when the Yankees, Mets and Detroit Tigers missed.

A 1-9 stretch in May put the Padres well off the pace, and although they have won 12 of their last 14 games, it wasn't enough to make up for the ground they lost earlier in the season.

Just one year ago, the Padres went 89-73, reached the playoffs as a wild-card team and made it all the way to the National League Championship Series before falling to the Philadelphia Phillies.

Machado has hit .258 with 30 home runs and 91 RBI this season, Juan Soto is slashing .274/.409/.519 with 35 homers and 108 RBI, Fernando Tatis Jr. is hitting .259 with 25 home runs and 78 RBI, and Xander Bogaerts, who was the Padres big offseason acquisition in free agency, is hitting .285 with 19 homers and 58 RBI.

On top of that, the Padres boast the likely NL Cy Young Award winner in Blake Snell, who is 14-9 with a 2.25 ERA and 234 strikeouts over 180 innings.

As pointed out by Danny Vietti of CBS Sports, the Padres enjoyed success offensively, defensively and on the mound to the point that it is almost unbelievable they missed the playoffs:

Given the Padres' inability to string together wins until it was too late, it is fair to wonder if general manager A.J. Preller, manager Bob Melvin or both could be in danger of losing their jobs.

Earlier this month, Ken Rosenthal and Dennis Lin of The Athletic wrote about the Padres' struggles and spoke to a Padres player who expressed their belief that the relationship between Preller and Melvin is "unfixable."

The Padres have missed the playoffs for the second time in the past three seasons and the 15th time in the past 17 seasons, so it seems likely that some major changes will be made, either to management or in terms of trimming the payroll significantly.