San Diego has a metro population that is 400k less than Minneapolis and roughly on par with Tampa Bay. This doesn't give small market teams complaining that they can't afford a competitive payroll much credibility. In other news the Padres will owe approximately $122m to 5 players in 2026: 39 year old Yu Darvish, 33 year old Manny Machado, 33 year old Xander Bogaerts, 33 year old Joe Musgrove and 27 year old Fernando Tatis Jr. They are paying Bogaerts until 2033 (age 40), Machado until 2034 (age 41), Tatis until 2034 (age 35) and Darvish until 2028 (age 41). Some fascinating stuff. Yes, the demographics of the cities are a little different, but this lays bare the lie that small market teams cannot afford to spend on talent. They don’t need to have the third highest payroll, but the differences between them and the handful of big market teams should not be so large.