The tear in Manny Machado’s elbow has been repaired, and the load on his shoulders has been lightened.

The leader is now one of many, and he is so clearly pleased with this.

“I think we’ve all learned in the past that it takes more than just one player to get to where we want to get to,” Machado said. “This year has been a lot different, for sure, in a good way.”

Oh, Machado knows how important he is to the Padres’ success. There is no question about that.

“Sure,” he said. “It’s always been like that. I mean, I’ve been the type of player that I show up every day.”

Fernando Tatis Jr. may be the Padres’ most exciting player, the most talented, the one whose tight pants are most closely inspected and whose every shimmy and hair toss and slide and bat toss is a meme waiting to happen.

But Machado is the Padres’ most valuable player. Time and again, as he goes so goes the team.

Manny Machado hits a two-run home run in an April 2022 game agianst the Braves.

(K.C. Alfred/The San Diego Union-Tribune)

The stretches in which Machado has been most productive over the past four seasons have largely coincided with the team’s greatest periods of winning.

Machado finished third in National League MVP voting in 2020 and second in ‘22, and the Padres made the postseason both times. He essentially carried the Padres to those playoff appearances — or he at least did the heavy lifting for long periods in both those seasons.

He was struggling early in 2020, batting .200/.308/.411 on Aug. 19 while the Padres had to that point languished to a 13-12 record. From Aug. 19 through the end of the season, Machado batted .373/.413/.694 as the Padres won 25 of their final 36 games to qualify for the playoffs for the first time in 14 years.

Through the first 2½ months of 2022, while the Padres reached 17 games over .500, Machado batted .329/.401/.548. He suffered an ankle injury on June 19, missed nine games and struggled into August while the Padres went 19-20 in that span. From Aug. 3 through the end of the season, he batted .313/.371/.581, and during their sprint to clinching a playoff spot in the season’s final two weeks he batted .291/.371/.546.

Machado’s best stretches in 2021 and ‘23 also coincided with the Padres’ best stretches. But his struggles were more prolonged in those seasons as well. (He ranked seventh in the major leagues in fWAR in ‘20 and second in ‘22. He ranked 29th in 2021 and 48th in ‘23.)

While it is true that the game’s best players are paid to be difference-makers, it has especially been so with Machado.

Since 2020, when the team around him became good enough for it to matter, the Padres are 85-41 when he has multiple hits, 140-65 when he drives in at least one run and 64-27 when he hits at least one home run. (Those winning percentages are all significantly higher than when Tatis accomplishes the same things.)

“I think everyone’s confidence gets raised up when he’s dialed in and playing his best,” Joe Musgrove said of Machado. “Where he hits in the lineup, the opportunities he has, when he goes, we’re in better shape. But I really think it’s just a confidence thing with the group. When your leader is playing at his best and is sharp, I think everyone else has a little more confidence they don’t have to do as much.”

Manny Machado waits his turn for batting practice during Padres spring training workouts at the Peoria Sports Complex.

(Meg McLaughlin/The San Diego Union-Tribune)

That is how it has been. And no one denies that is probably how it will be in 2024, even as the Padres preach how everyone must contribute.

However, as the Padres prepare to begin the season here Wednesday against the Dodgers, there is a new kind of lightness to Machado. It is not just that he seems genuinely pleased. He appears unburdened by the direction the Padres have made an effort to take internally.

The messaging from inside the clubhouse this spring has been all about togetherness and consistency and a focus on the building blocks of winning.

And a central point where those components merged for the Padres was working to make sure a culture that several players said last year lacked cohesion and unity was fixed.

After a season in which a leadership void was apparent — and vocalized — several veteran players took it upon themselves to step into the breach. Whatever had been said or done or not said or done in the past, the team’s other stars rallied around Machado and each other.

“We didn’t do a good job as, I guess what is viewed as the other leaders in the clubhouse, of taking a little bit of that stress off of him,” Musgrove said. “… The articles are coming out and all these things are happening, and he’s feeling a lot of that pressure, and it feels like everybody was pointing fingers at him when the reality was he was not the only guy that mattered in here. There were a lot of us in here who weren’t pulling our weight and helping him out. So I think he feels a lot better this year knowing that.”

No one ever said they didn’t cherish Machado as a teammate. No one questioned the toughness of a man who last year was essentially forced onto the injured list for the first time since 2014 and played through a painful elbow injury.

But many people in the organization, from the front office to those in the clubhouse, acknowledged Machado was the Padres’ leader by the sheer force of his personality and accomplishments — not necessarily because he wanted all that the role entails or possessed the entirety of the skill set required to be that person.

Virtually everyone knew this could not go on.

Manny Machado hugs Ha-Seong Kim during Padres spring training workouts at the Peoria Sports Complex.

(Meg McLaughlin/The San Diego Union-Tribune)

New manager Mike Shildt’s devotion to the concept of “alignment” extends upward to his boss, President of Baseball Operations A.J. Preller, and downward to those in his charge. Shildt was around the team as an adviser and de facto member of the coaching staff the past two seasons and identified where tweaks needed to be made in communication and leadership structure.

“Shildty is a big part of that,” Musgrove said. “Shildty made a point to get the leadership group together for everything. Every conversation is all of us contract guys together talking about it so we’re on the same page. And I think everyone has been able to kind of play a certain role in leadership that maybe alleviates pressure from a guy that’s not comfortable being the vocal leader or maybe doing a certain role that was sort of out of his realm. So I think everyone working together makes it a little bit easier on him.”

Said Jake Cronenworth: “I think it’s the group of older guys that have come together and kind of taken it upon ourselves that like — Manny is the big dog and Shildty is our leader — but I think the older guys on the team have kind of taken it upon us, like, ‘This is how we’re going to play.’”

Machado’s appreciation for these developments is apparent in how he responds when it is pointed out, interrupting a question to enthusiastically affirm the situation.

“A lot of guys have (stepped up),” he said. “A lot of people have been putting their two cents into it. To win, I think everyone needs to be involved. Everyone needs to be together, and everyone needs to be on the same page. And I think we have that this year.”