Padres' AJ Preller Reveals Secret Formula: Gatorade, Chocolate Milk, and Adrenaline

In orchestrating six major trade deadline deals over the last four years, Padres general manager AJ Preller has dealt away 235 prospects. He has made trades with 28 of the 29 teams in Major League Baseball. He's traded for Juan Soto, and traded Soto away.

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The most recent trade deadline saw Preller execute five deals involving 22 players over a span of six hours. He tried to make more trades.

That struck Robert Murray of FanSided as quite a lot of action, even by Preller's lofty standards. So Murray used the occasion of the GM Meetings this week in Las Vegas to confront Preller about his workload.

"I’ve always been curious about AJ Preller and what exactly his trade deadlines look like," Murray said on The Baseball Insiders with Adam Weinrib. "I told him, straight up, last deadline was even busy even by his standards."

How does he do it?

"He told me he goes to bed at 3 in the morning and wakes up at 4:30 in the morning," Murray said. "He gets about an hour and a half of sleep. … I was like, how the heck do you stay up and do your thing, and he was like, ‘pure adrenaline.’

"He drinks Gatorade. He drinks chocolate milk. He is as unique as any executive in ball."

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"Unique" is one word.

Padres outfielder Ramon Laureano has called Preller's behavior "crazy" and "nuts." A former Padres baseball operations employee called it "insane."

“Everyone is in play all the time,” one Padres scout told Britt Ghiroli and Dennis Lin of The Athletic. “It’s exciting. It’s f—— exhausting.”

Perhaps Preller's rivals in the industry would be heartened to know he is, himself, often exhausted.

"He loves talking ball," Murray said. "He loves talking different trade scenarios."

Murray then went on to douse water on speculation that Preller would trade Fernando Tatis Jr.

USA Today's Bob Nightengale raised the possibility of such a blockbuster earlier this week. While noting that the Padres don't want to deal the reigning National League Platinum Glove Award winner, he noted they might have to in order to satisfy internal salary constraints.

"You can never rule anything out with AJ Preller," Murray said, "but I don’t see them trading Tatis."

That won't stop the MLB rumor mill from spinning, especially as the Winter Meetings loom. Preller is certainly doing his part to keep the speculation flowing.

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