Padres fan survey: How do you feel about the state of the franchise?

The mid-market Padres’ latest aggressive offseason has created more waves, not only in their seaport city but also in landlocked locales around the country. San Diego, after doling out more than $380 million to Xander Bogaerts and several other free agents, is projected to open the upcoming season with a $251 million payroll and a $271 million luxury tax figure, both numbers the third-highest in baseball.

“What the Padres are doing, I don’t 100 percent agree with, though I know that our fans probably agree with it,” Colorado Rockies owner Dick Monfort said Saturday, according to the Denver Post. “We’ll see how it works out.

“I look at the Padres and they have a really talented team, but they have some holes, too,” Monfort said. “They’ve got three, maybe four starting pitchers, and then they’re sort of like us. They have (Joe) Musgrove, (Blake) Snell and (Yu) Darvish, so I don’t know. They have spent a lot of money and they will have to spend a lot more if they want to keep Juan Soto. But it does put a lot of pressure on you. Yes, it does.”

Yes, it is quite a time to be a Padres fan. Other fan bases are experiencing pangs of jealousy. Other owners are rankled by a perceived impetuousness that has upped the cost of doing business. The roster does have some holes, but similarities with teams such as the Rockies actually seem rather limited. “I think we can play .500 ball,” Monfort said over the weekend. Peter Seidler and the Padres, conversely, are betting big because they think they can win the 2023 World Series.

We’ll see how it works out, of course. In 2021, the Padres famously flopped. A year ago, when The Athletic conducted a fan survey, only 17.6 percent of 1,225 respondents said they were “very confident” that the franchise was headed in the right direction. The Padres, without Fernando Tatis Jr. for an entire season, proceeded to dig out an 89-win finish and advance to the National League Championship Series. This team has a way of subverting expectations.

(Note: Use two fingers to scroll on mobile devices, and remember that there are two scroll bars: one for the page, one for the embedded survey. You can also fill out the survey directly at this link.)