Steve Webb
LOS ANGELES, CA — I get it. Rivalries in sports are fun. And part of the fun is booing the best players on the other teams, whether or not they “deserve” it. But the level of vitriol Dodger fans have toward Padres star Manny Machado seems to go quite beyond the normal boundaries of garden-variety hater-ism. On Thursday night at the opening of the Dodgers’ home series with the second-place Padres, the chants of “Manny sucks! Manny sucks!” filled the Chavez Ravine air every time the third baseman stepped to the plate. In his first game after nursing an ankle injury for a couple of weeks, Machado went 1-for-4 with a double and run scored. He did, however, strike out three times, giving the boo birds plenty to enjoy.
Machado is having an insane 2022
If you look up and down the Padre dugout, you see a lot of good pitchers, but without phenom Fernando Tatis Jr., there isn’t much in the way of offensive pop in this ball club. They rank 19th in MLB in OPS, falling behind such also-rans as the Cubs, Marlins, and Nationals.
Truth be told the only reason the Padres are within a mile of first place is the performance of Machado. His .943 OPS leads the team by a good 200 points over his nearest rival, and it ranks third in the National League behind only Paul Goldschmidt and Bryce Harper. Throw in the cannon of an arm and mad glove work at third, and its easy to see why FanGraphs rates Machado as the #1 player in all of baseball in 2022 with a WAR of 4.3 not even halfway through the season. That’s better than Mike Trout. Better than Rafael Devers. Better than Aaron Judge. Better than anyone. Clearly the reason for the boos at Dodger Stadium have nothing to do with the possibility that Manny actually sucks. No, the animosity comes from something much deeper.
Dodgers tenure ended in disappointment
Of course, much of the hatred for Machado comes from the brief time Machado spent with the Dodgers in 2018. Acquired at the All Star break, Machado seemed a perfect fit for the playoff-bound Dodgers as they tried to bounce back after losing the 2017 series to the Astros* (we know why that happened, but that’s another story). If you recall, Corey Seager had injured his UCL in May of that year, and needed season-ending surgery. For a couple of months the Dodgers were using stopgap measures like playing Chris Taylor at short, and they were just getting by. At the All Star Break, they had a record of 53-43 and were tied with the Rockies for the lead in the NL West.
Enter Manny Machado. In one of Andrew Friedman’s patented blockbusters, the Dodgers traded five young prospects to gain the service of Machado, who was having a great first half with the Orioles. Machado played the All Star Game in an Oriole uniform, but that would be his last game in those colors. He joined the Dodgers once the break was over and debuted on July 20 in a game against the Brewers, in which he went 2-for-3 and drove in a pair of runs.
August was rough for the Dodgers, and they found themselves in quite a hole, but they put together a great September, going 18-9 in the month, to pull to a flat-footed tie with the Rockies. That forced a game 163 at Dodger Stadium, which the Dodgers won, securing the division at the last possible moment. And how did Machado do during that time? Good, not great, is I guess how I’d describe it. His OPS was .825 over 66 games, and he hit 13 homers and drove in 42. Now those are good numbers, but they’re considerably lower than what he was putting up with the Orioles (.318/.357/.545 slash line). So, part of the Dodger fans’ current hatred of Machado stems from the feeling that he underperformed with the team.
And postseason heroics didn’t happen, either. He had a good NLCS against Milwaukee, but was not good at all during the World Series loss to Boston. But let’s face it, other than David Freese and Justin Turner, almost nobody played well for the Dodgers in those five games. How much blame does Machado bear for the loss? I don’t know; I’d say nobody was beating that Red Sox team that year, particularly not the Dodgers, whose 2018 squad was the weakest of the last five years.
Still, the facts are the facts. Machado only hit .218 in the Fall Classic, with just four singles and no extra base hits. He drove in three runs, but that was hardly anything to write home about for a supposed superstar. There was also the sense that Machado was “dogging it.” During one infamous incident in the NLCS, Machado blew a bubble while running to first instead of busting it up line. After the game, Machado said, “I’m not the type of player that’s going to be a ‘Johnny Hustle’ and run down the line and slide to first base.” That rubbed a lot of people the wrong way.
Machado hit the free agent market at the end of the season, and the Dodger fan bases heaved a collective sigh and said, “Bye Felicia”.
Antics with Padres annoy Dodger fans
So when the San Diego Padres signed Machado to a 10-year, 300-million dollar contract during the offseason, there was a lot of shrugs up in Dodger land. Nobody was that worked up about trying to sign him, even though Justin Turner was starting to age and Corey Seager had a free agency a couple of years away. “Who cares?” seemed to be the basic idea. And when Machado and the Padres struggled to a 70-92 record in 2019, it only seemed to confirm fans suspicions about Machado: he wasn’t a winner.
However, that all changed in 2020. During the shortened Covid-season, the Padres got good, putting up a 37-23 record and making the playoff for the first time in a while. Machado’s OPS was back up to .950, and Fernando Tatis Jr. was doing amazing things. Even though there were no fans in the stadiums, this is, I think, when the “Manny sucks” era was truly born. Dodgers saw the Padres as a team that might challenge their dominance in the future, and started to adjust their emotions accordingly.
Plus, Machado’s behavior irked a lot of people. He made an offhand comment to a fan that the Padres would win the World Series before the Dodgers did. He made what many considered a dirty slide in a playoff game against the Cardinals. And let’s not forget that it was Machado who was one of the main instigators of the conflict in the now famous Brusdar Graterol glove-throwing incident. Good drama.
So, when the fans got back into the stadiums in 2021, they were bound to have a lot of boos saved up over a season away from the game. And they’ve been letting Machado hear it ever since. Does he deserve it? Probably not. But does he bring a lot of it on himself? Absolutely.
The sense is, I think, that no matter what his talents may be, and they are considerable, Manny Machado is an insufferable jerk. And then there’s that South Beach swagger that many Dodger fans find off-putting. It’s just a mix of braggadocio and arrogance that hasn’t been earned with team success.
Clearly, Dodger fans are enjoying booing Machado much more than they ever enjoyed cheering for him. And don’t expect that to change much over the next (checks watch) decade or so. Manny hatred is here to stay.
