Padres' Bob Melvin excited to return to $256,000,000 team despite a disappointing season

The San Diego Padres could not reach playoffs in 2023 and there were rumors that manager Bob Melvin would not return for the team having a $256 million payroll. However, those rumors were debunked on Thursday when Melvin announced that he's "looking forward to getting back to spring training next season."

General Manager A.J. Preller also confirmed on Wednesday that Melvin will be entering his final year of the contract, though, he denied commenting on his contract extension. The Padres ranked third in the nation behind the New York Mets and the New York Yankees in terms of the 2023 payroll.

Though they appeared in the NLCS last year, the club had a dismal start to the 2023 season and finished 82-80, just about .500. Despite being mathematically alive until last week, they were outmatched by their divisional rivals LA Dodgers and Arizona Diamondbacks.

“Obviously, we had a really tough year and nobody feels good about that,” Melvin said. “We’d certainly like to have a year more like the year before in ‘22 than in ’23 and continue to appreciate the support that I get from our owner, Peter Seidler, as well as our major league staff. We’ll be looking forward to getting back to spring training and getting at it.”[via AP news]

When asked about his relationship with Preller, he said:

“Those are anonymous reports so we’re fine and we’re moving forward and we’re both excited about it. Look, during the course of the season you talk about a lot of things in those meetings and nobody agrees on everything and I think that’s healthy. That’s about as far as I’ll go with it.”

He even mentioned that the organizational meeting that took place on Monday was to reflect back on the season and the learnings to take away from it:

“As we do, you go home and you process things and you think about more things that you can do to try to get past what we thought the deficiencies were and how to make it better."

Bob Melvin's coaching career

Melvin will enter his third season with the Padres and 21st in the majors next year being the manager. As a manager, he also represented the Seattle Mariners, Arizona Diamondbacks, and Oakland Athletics. His overall record stands at 1,517-1,425 along with eight postseason appearances. He also won the "Manager of the Year" award three times in the majors.

He has guided the San Diego Padres to two winning records and an NLCS appearance under Preller since 1998.