However, the Padres end up filling out their rotation come Opening Day, one potential candidate to start has been eliminated at this point: left-hander Adrian Morejon. According to a report from Jeff Sanders of the San Diego Union-Tribune yesterday, club manager Mike Shildt spoke about Morejon’s place on the roster yesterday and gave the lefty a vote of confidence in a relief role.

“Adrián has found a really nice niche in the bullpen,” Shildt said, as relayed by Sanders. “It’s a spot that we think he’s not only going to do as well as he did last year, but take the next step and he’s excited about remaining in the bullpen and just being a dominant guy in that spot.”

That’s a bit of a reversal from earlier this winter, when Morejon was among a handful of relievers identified by president of baseball operations A.J. Preller as potential rotation converts. Moving players from the bullpen to the rotation has become quite popular around the game in recent years, and Preller’s decision to sign Seth Lugo as part of the club’s rotation mix and Lugo’s subsequent transformation into a bona fide top-of-the-rotation arm was a catalyst for that growing popularity.

Morejon was as sensible a candidate for such a conversion as any given his history as a starting pitcher in the minor leagues, though given that 2024 was Morejon’s first healthy season as a big leaguer it’s understandable that the club has decided to keep him in the bullpen rather than risk more injuries by stretching him out. Stephen Kolek and Bryan Hoeing have also been discussed as potential converts to the rotation, but it remains unclear whether that’s still on the table for them entering camp or if, like Morejon, the Padres plan to keep them in relief roles for 2025. It’s even possible those decisions have not yet been made given the uncertainty surrounding the club’s rotation amid rumors of the club trading Cease or King.

Turning to the positional side of things, veteran third baseman Manny Machado spoke to reporters (including MLB.com’s AJ Cassavell) yesterday about the progress his elbow has made since undergoing offseason surgery last winter. That surgery cost him the final days of the 2023 season and kept him from returning to his typical post as the Padres’ regular third baseman until May, and continued to mix in occasional DH days throughout the first half. Machado noted that he dealt with the “lingering effects” of his surgery throughout the 2024 campaign, but made clear that “everything” has been different for him this offseason as he’s now “back to normal” for the first time post-surgery.

Whether that will be enough to help catapult the 32-year-old back into the .280/.352/.504 (130 wRC+) form he showed during his first four seasons in a Padres uniform remains to be seen, but it’s surely an encouraging sign for Padres fans that Machado is feeling healthier than he was last season, when he posted a 122 wRC+ with 3.6 fWAR. The veteran slugger has nine years left on the 11-year, $350MM deal he signed prior to the 2023 season, so Machado’s ability to maintain star-caliber production into his mid-to-late 30’s will be key to the Padres’ success over the coming decade.

While the Padres have been preparing for the coming season on the field and in the front office, a squabble between ownership stakeholders has been going on in the background. While the Padres announced back in December that Peter Seidler’s brother John Seidler was poised to take over as the franchise control person, that was seemingly put on hold when Peter’s widow, Sheel Seidler, filed a lawsuit against Peter’s other two brothers (and trustees of The Peter Seidler Trust) Matt and Bob Seidler. Matt Seidler subsequently filed a response to that lawsuit last week, and as the legal battle surrounding the role of Padres control person continues plenty of speculation has gone on among fans and media members about the future of the franchise.

As noted in a column by Matt Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times yesterday, however, one thing the Seidler brothers are resolute on is their commitment to owning the Padres. Shaikin notes that the brothers have “no plans to sell the Padres to anyone.” That apparently includes Sheel Seidler, whose legal counsel Dane Butswinkas, Shaikin reports, refused to answer whether or not she is attempting to buy her former brothers-in-law out of the franchise.

“Ideally, we would like to resolve this with the brothers,” Butswinksas said, as relayed by Shaikin. “However, for that to occur, it would take some level of cooperation from them. So far, we have seen no signs of that happening. The current path towards resolution, unfortunately, is through litigation, which we know can drag on for years and would be in no one’s interest.”

The possibility of a sale comes up in Shaikin’s piece, which MLBTR readers are encouraged to read in full, as part of a larger discussion about recent legal disputes between stakeholders within ownership groups in instances of divorce, illness, or death affecting a club’s primary owner. Those disputes, as Shaikin notes, have a history of being resolved through the sale of the team. Former Padres owner John Moores and, more recently, the Angelos family that formerly owned the Orioles are among previous owners who have sold their teams amid legal battles within the team’s ownership structure.

Matt and Sheel present very different perspectives about how things have proceeded in recent years. Matt’s response states that Peter amended his trust seven times and did not name Sheel a trustee in any of those changes, whereas Peter’s brothers Robert, Matt and John Seidler are designated as trustees, with the trustees to name the control person. In December, it was reported that John would be named the club’s new control person.

“In fact,” the response reads, “… the Trust Agreement precludes Sheel from ever serving as a successor Trustee under any circumstance. Conversely, Peter provided that, after Sheel’s death, each of his Children would have the right to become cotrustees of their own trusts once they reached the age of (40).” The response goes on to say that the transactions Sheel identified as fraud actually benefited the trust at a rate twice as much as expected, with Sheel and her children beneficiaries of said trust.

Matt’s response also alleges the trust has made multiple transactions to benefit Sheel, including transferring ownership of a $30MM Texas ranch to her name, the purchase of an $8.5MM home in Coronado, California, as well as cash disbursements totaling more than $4.5MM. Matt’s response alleges that Sheel requested to be the club’s control person, which Matt denied, at which point she demanded $20MM and a promise of annual payments in that same amount. Matt also alleges that Sheel used power of attorney to take $2.5MM from one of Peter’s accounts while he was in the ICU. The filing also states that “Sheel’s goal is to manufacture claims against the Trustees in pursuit of the control that Peter intentionally chose not to give her” and that the lawsuit was a public relations move which “sought to prejudice the Padres fanbase against Matt, Bob, and John.”

Whether the ownership battle has any on-field impact is something that can be debated, but Matt’s filing insinuates that Sheel’s suggestion that the club might leave San Diego impacted discussions with right-hander Roki Sasaki. The Dodgers were long considered the most likely landing spot for Sasaki with the Padres considered a dark-horse threat. The Padres and Dodgers were two of the three finalists, alongside the Blue Jays, though Sasaki did eventually pick the Dodgers.

Longtime Padre Jurickson Profar recently signed with Atlanta and was asked about not returning to San Diego. In video relayed by Jim Russell of Jon & Jim, Profar alluded to the “issues with ownership” that the Padres have.

Perhaps that was a reference to this legal battle or simply the club’s well-documented financial issues in recent years. Even before Peter died in November of 2023, it was reported in September of that year that the club would have to cut back its spending habits because they were deemed to be “out of compliance with MLB regulations regarding their debt service ratio.” The current offseason and last winter’s have been largely defined by the club dealing with payroll constraints, which led to last winter’s Juan Soto trade. The club has been less active this offseason but players like Dylan Cease, Michael King, Luis Arráez, Robert Suarez and others have been in trade rumors.

Dane Butswinkas, an attorney representing Sheel, provided Acee with a statement in response to Matt’s filing: “The response, for all of its bravado, is especially thin in responding to the very specific and serious allegations of Matt and Robert Seidler’s breaches of fiduciary duty. It’s ironic that they accuse Sheel — Peter’s wife of two decades and the mother of his three children — of misusing his assets, while at the same time they have reaped the benefits of Peter’s generosity for decades. The fact is, we will win in court because the defendants have shown they have no case. In short, their response is a total strike out.”

It’s unclear what the next steps of the legal process will be or what the expected timelines are. Per Lin, the MLB owners are scheduled to vote on John as the club’s control person next week. Many clubs are owned by multiple people but each team gets one control person who is a point of contact for the league and who votes on league matters.

Complicated ownership disputes are not unprecedented in Major League Baseball. Various members of the Angelos family, which previously owned the Orioles, filed lawsuits against each other after Peter Angelos fell ill. Those lawsuits were dropped in February of 2023 and the club was sold to a group headed by David Rubenstein in 2023.

The Trust did not directly address Sheel Seidler’s claims that Matt Seidler could pursue a sale and relocation. However, Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune writes that sources around the league consider the idea of the Padres leaving to be “extremely far-fetched.”

2:31pm: Last month, it was reported that the Padres would be appointing John Seidler to take over as the club’s new control person, but that was still pending league approval and there are new developments in that story. A report from Eben Novy-Williams and Daniel Libit at Sportico has details of a lawsuit filed by Sheel Seidler, Peter’s widow, trying to gain control of the team. Sheel later released a statement in relation to the story.

At issue is how things have proceeded in the wake of Peter Seidler’s death, which was just over a year ago. Peter was part of a group that purchased the Padres in 2012. Ron Fowler acted as the club’s control person until Peter took over after the 2020 season. MLB teams are often owned by multiple people but each team has one designated control person who is a point of contact for the league and votes on key matters.

During Peter’s ownership tenure, the club became known for being highly aggressive, despite being in a relatively smaller market. As shown in the data at Cot’s Baseball Contracts, the Padres had been one of the lower-spending clubs for much of the century, until recently. They had one of the top ten payrolls in 2021, then got into the top five in 2022 and the top three a year after that.

That led to a huge increase in terms of fan engagement and also results, with the club having now made the postseason in three of the past five seasons. However, it hasn’t all been smooth sailing. In September of 2023, it was reported that the club’s wild spending had put it “out of compliance with MLB regulations regarding their debt service ratio,” which was going to lead to a payroll crunch. Peter, who had a number of ongoing health problems, died less than two months later.

Shortly after Peter’s death, it was reported that a new control person had been decided upon. Eric Kutsenda, one of the co-founders of Seidler Equity Partners, was given the title on an interim basis. Just over a year later, the aforementioned reporting from last month indicated that Peter’s brother John would be taking over as control person. The report from Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune included a statement that mentioned two of Peter’s brothers: “Peter’s youngest brother Matt, as trustee of Peter’s trust, is pleased to announce that John Seidler, Peter’s oldest sibling, an accomplished entrepreneur and business executive, will be the Padres’ next control person, pending approval by Major League Baseball.” Acee added that the Seidler family owns “what is believed to be a 45% stake in the team.” That includes Peter’s brothers, widow, mother and others.

Today’s lawsuit suggests that segment of the ownership group is not aligned in their thinking. According to Sportico’s report, Sheel’s lawsuit alleges that two of Peter’s brothers, Matt and Bob, breached their fiduciary duties as trustees of the Seidler Trust. The suit claims they conspired to sell trust assets to themselves at “far-below-market prices,” as they “schemed to solidify their control of the Padres.”

The suit also suggests that the brothers had racial and sexist motivations for keeping the club out of Sheel’s hands, saying that Bob’s wife made multiple “racist, profane and hateful communications directed at Sheel—a woman of Indian descent—in communications.” Sheel claims that Peter wanted to eventually pass the club to his kids and wanted her to act as control person in the interim, with the brothers now trying to “falsely cast themselves as Peter’s true heirs.” Evan Drellich of The Athletic relays one section of the suit which suggests Matt wants to “sell, and perhaps relocate, the team, over Sheel’s strident objections.”

Sheel is seeking damages, that the defendants be denied compensation from the Seidler Trusts, to void any of their previous actions relating to advancing the Padres’ control person and also that Matt be removed as the trustee, with a receivership taking control of the trust.

“Earlier today,” Sheel’s statement reads, “I filed a complaint against Matthew Seidler and Robert Seidler to protect my family and to continue to carry out Peter’s legacy.” She goes on to talk about how much the club meant to the family and her desire to be named control person. “The complaint alleges claims against Matthew and Robert for breaches of fiduciary duty and fraud. I would urge anyone who is interested in the details to read the full complaint. This was not a decision I made lightly. During this difficult period, I have done everything in my power to avoid unwanted distractions and resolve the matter privately. I have focused on supporting the work of the many dedicated professionals within the Padres organization, as well as the incredible players we have the privilege of watching nearly every day throughout the season. I made this decision as a very last resort, but I am confident it is the right one, and the best way to protect the Padres franchise and ensure the vision that Peter and I shared for the team will continue.” She goes on to state her desire that the team will one day be left to hers and Peter’s children while hoping for a quick resolution to this dispute.

Legal disputes over a baseball club are not unprecedented. Most recently, Orioles owner Peter Angelos fell into ill health, which led to his family members filing multiple lawsuits against each other for control of the club. Those suits were eventually dropped and the club was sold to David Rubenstein.