PEORIA, Ariz. — Taking things one day at a time for the entirety of a Major League Baseball season requires a lot of days of doing so.
Even the best of the best, men who have been at the highest level for the longest of times, can lose their way over the course of six months that grinds on mind, body and soul.
So even a team with a bunch of leaders needs a leader.
Bob Melvin is the manager for this moment.
"His biggest strength is giving players the confidence that they can be the best and know that they'll be ready every single night," Manny Machado said. "As a player, you see that in your manager — that he has the confidence that we're going to be okay whether we're in a winning streak or losing streak, whatever it is. He's giving you the confidence that 'Hey, we're going to be all right tonight. You're gonna go out there and you're gonna perform and you're gonna be ready to play.' That gives you a huge confidence boost as a player.
"Sometimes, as a player you get carried away with results. And he's not that guy. If you're doing what you need to do beforehand and you're putting in the work, the results will come and he knows sometimes they won't, and I think that's relieving on the player. You don't gotta be like, 'Damn, I'm doing all this work and we're not getting the results.' Then you put more stress and more stress and more stress on yourself, and you dig yourself a hole. He doesn't let us do that. That's huge for our team. You're very comfortable coming in here knowing that you are going to be able to put the work in, you're going to go out there and perform and you know that he's gonna be in control when the game starts."
And that's pretty much the 2022 season in a Machado-wrapped nutshell. And it is a reason to believe there won't be a gargantuan pot of disappointment at the end of 2023's rainbow of expectations, like what happened last time the Padres made the playoffs and were supposed to be World Series contenders the following year.
Following the calamitous ruin of 2021, Melvin arrived to take charge of a clubhouse looking for a calming influence and ready to believe in a manager with more than 1,300 career victories and the seemingly unanimous affection of his former players.
By the end, the Padres had improved 11 games in the standings from '21, were playing their best in September and October and advanced to the National League Championship Series for the first time in 24 years.
At so many points along the way, it went about as Melvin said it would, even when it didn't go as anyone could have predicted.
From the moment of his first phone calls to introduce himself through his first team address in spring training informing them they'd be without Fernando Tatis Jr. for at least a few months to his reassuring talks in April, Melvin had them understanding he was the right guy to follow.
All he did was insist the Padres play the right way and then let them play. He let his coaches coach. He managed games with a confidence and decisiveness that players knew had been lacking under first-time manager Jayce Tingler. He cajoled and encouraged, sometimes in a group setting but most often one on one.
"Just more to remind us every day and keep us level-headed that no matter what the day is, no matter what point in the season we're in, ups, downs, struggles, winning streaks, losing streaks," Jake Cronenworth said of Melvin's role in the Padres' success. "He's the same every day."
Melvin takes in pregame batting and fielding practice with the air of a professor presiding over a lab. He talks to players here and there, maybe hits fungoes to Machado. Mostly, though, he walks around and watches. It's all very CEO, same as how he delegates responsibility among his coaches. He will make suggestions to coaches and players, is involved in game planning, has the final say in games. He is in charge but not a meddler.
Consistency is his core tenet. For night games, Melvin arrives at the ballpark promptly at 11 a.m. on the first day of a series and 11:30 on the days thereafter. His door is always open. Always. Players know where to find him.
He played 10 big league seasons as a backup catcher. He became a bench coach in 1999, a manager in 2003. He has managed at least part of all but one season since. And no other MLB manager has worked uninterrupted as long as Melvin, who took over the A's in June of 2011 and managed his hometown team until the Padres came calling in October 2021.
He knows what this is about.
So he's the same guy day after day.
"The biggest thing we all have for him is trust, respect and knowing he's going to be here every day for us," Cronenworth said. "No matter what the situation is, he's gonna be the same guy, same attitude."
Melvin's messages for the most part during the Padres' hardly-ever-sensational first five months of the '22 season had a theme. It was basically: We'll be OK. Keep doing what you're doing well. Clean up this or that or the other thing. And when we get to the end, we're going to be better because of all this.
And then it happened.
Players had gravitated to him in the beginning simply because he had the gravitas and experience and because they had heard testimonials from players around the league. Now they saw for themselves. What he said came true, and how he acted modeled something that worked.
That's the thing about leaders like that. What they say means something because their carefully selected, judiciously used words match their unfailing actions and generally end up foretelling the future.
Said Cronenworth: "The same message just delivered in a different way starts to resonate, and you start to realize, 'No, he's actually telling us something that happens.' It's somebody who saw the whole time from a different lens. We're out there. We're trying to win games, but he's watching it all happen, seeing certain things over the season, and then it comes to fruition."
The other thing about leaders that show so much trust and never lose their cool is that when they finally run out of patience, it has a profound effect on their charges.
As was well documented last season, Melvin's most powerful clubhouse speech came Sept. 15 in Arizona after the Padres had listlessly lost the opener of a series against the Diamondbacks. He was angry and disappointed in how they had been playing. It spawned a series of meetings between players, changes in pregame routines and in-game focus. They won three in a row and 12 of their next 18 en route to clinching a playoff spot.
"It comes down to having a leader, someone like Bob, kind of steer the ship," Nick Martinez said. "He's like, 'Hey, we're not gonna panic here. We still have this goal in mind. Let's keep playing our style.' And then when we weren't playing our style for too long, there was a kick in the ass, and then we righted the ship."
The feeling within the clubhouse is that players such as Nelson Cruz, Matt Carpenter, Xander Bogaerts, Joe Musgrove and Machado should be able to police things for the most part in '23.
Melvin will watch and wait. Undoubtedly, there will be times he has to navigate turmoil. Already, the Padres will begin the season without Musgrove. And sometimes, the brightest stars crash the hardest.
"There are a lot of guys that lead here and are veteran guys and they're all after the same thing," Melvin said. "So that makes it easy. But I've said before, we tend to have a little drama here from time to time, and if I can help us navigate that and we can have a smooth sail through those waters, then maybe we benefit some from that."
