AJ Preller’s trades of minor leaguers helped the Padres make the 2022 NLCS and has made this year’s a playoff contender
Padres president of baseball operations A.J. Preller greets pitcher Jeremiah Estrada before a June 6 game at Petco Park.To Preller’s credit, Trea Turner and Max Fried didn’t cause him to run scared.
Good information is power, and early on, a Padres management team lacking in-job experience wasn’t very wise to MLB team-building. Rather than initially attempting a scorched-earth, draft-and-develop build-up like those that would help make the Cubs and Astros into world champions, Preller began to auction off minor leaguers.
A bad trade with the Dodgers raised another yellow flag, as did Preller’s giveaway of Emmanuel Clase, who’s now having a third dominant season as Cleveland’s closer.But the Padres weren’t winning games as a result.Many years later, he’s one of the best in MLB at it. In fact, Preller and his staffers have done a lot right in recent years.Preller held on to Jackson Merrill two summers ago when the same Nationals general manager, Mike Rizzo, sought the Single-A shortstop.
Vital to the 2022 Padres reaching the franchise’s first World Series qualifier since 1998 and the 2023 Padres landing second in MLB attendance were Preller’s trades of 10-plus prospects. Years later, Preller seems to have correctly evaluated those minor leaguers he dealt to get the ‘22 NLCS team’s top-three starting pitchers, incuding 2023 Cy Young Winner Blake Snell and closer Josh Hader.
Striking once again at this year’s trade deadline — two years after a scout said the trade for Soto left the system “decimated” beyond Merrill — Preller dealt eight minor leaguers.
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