The San Diego Padres had big needs at the trade deadline, and GM A.J. Preller came up big to meet them.
Yup, A.J. Preller did it again.
The odds were stacked against the San Diego Padres GM this time around, though, largely because of San Diego’s ownership situation. The sale of the team wasn’t approved until after the trade deadline, so it seemed unlikely that Preller would have the budget to make a move.
Instead he made two. Preller acquired starters Casey Mize and Robbie Ray by once again stripping an already-thin farm system, and it’s allowed the Padres to get hot and hop over the Arizona Diamondbacks in the wild-card race.
It was a nifty move that was basically accomplished by giving Preller a future budget of sorts. Losing the prospects will hurt, but Preller made it clear in his trade deadline followup that the Padres are out to win now, and he refused to apologize for that.
Both Mize and Ray will be free agents after the season, and the Padres will almost have to rebuild their entire rotation after this season depending on the decisions they make.
Contrast that with the decisions of Arizona GM Mike Hazen, who played it conservative at the deadline. The Diamondbacks’ big move at the deadline was trading for outfielder Lars Nootbar, who’s a nice player, but he’s definitely not a difference-maker.
Mize and Ray have been just that, even though they’ve been average as a whole. But the Padres had no starting rotation to speak of behind Michael King before the trades, and their pitching-by-committee approach was running on fumes.
The difference since the acquisitions is stunning. The Padres have currently won 12 of 13, and they’ve scrambled the NL wild-card race, which currently has them tied for the top spot with the Chicago Cubs. That possibility was unfathomable before Aug. 3, and that’s really all about Preller.
Meanwhile, the Diamondbacks’ playoff hopes are on life support. They’re currently four games behind the Philadelphia Phillies in the wild-card race, with the Padres sitting a game above the Phillies. San Diego’s current magic number is three, but the Phils have a lot more to worry about than they do.
None of this happens without Preller, and without the new ownership group. Credit Jose E. Feliciano and Kwanza Jones with recognizing the circumstances and the need and doing the right thing, and it seems almost certain to bring another year of playoff baseball to San Diego. But Preller deserves the lion’s share of the credit for making a daring pair of moves that would have cowed most GMs.
