Padres Scout Gets Honest About Working For AJ Preller

San Diego Padres general manager AJ Preller speaks on the phone during NLCS workouts at Petco Park on Oct. 17, 2022. | Orlando Ramirez-Imagn Images

The San Diego Padres completed five trades involving 22 players on July 31, the day before the trade deadline across Major League Baseball. For comparison's sake, the Colorado Rockies have made four trades in the last year.

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At the center of all the evaluations, negotiations and decisions behind each trade is Padres president of baseball operations and general manager AJ Preller. If the volume of transactions the Padres engage in makes it seem as if Preller has a lot on his plate, it's because he does.

“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.”

“It really is insane,” a former baseball operations employee added. “(Preller) is a relentless worker, and he is some kind of smart. But it is insane, the worries and depths that he goes to.”

Outside the Padres' organization, the feeling is at least partially mutual.

An American League executive told MLB.com's Mark Feinsand that Preller "drives everyone nuts."

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“He basically kept multiple teams on the hook as he shopped (Leo) De Vries," said the executive. "He was a buyer, but kind of operated like a seller in terms of auctioning off De Vries to the highest bidder.”

History suggests Preller's predilection to do a deal is ingrained. At the time he was hired in August 2014, Ken Rosenthal of FoxSports.com used a litany of unusual, anonymous quotes from rivals to describe Preller: "Mad scientist." "Disheveled." "Photographic memory."

Those descriptions played out well in the years to come. He had barely been in charge of the Padres for three months when he made a flurry of moves in December 2014 during and around the Winter Meetings.

While Preller's reputation as a workaholic might be well-deserved, the quantity of his activity tends to mask the quality.

"He really, really kind of brings everything to the table," Jon Daniels, the former Texas Rangers GM who hired Preller to his previous job, said in a 2014 interview. "A tremendous talent evaluator, and I think that's where a lot of the media, I've read, is focused. I think that's accurate. That's one of the more unique skills in the game.

"I think what that misses [is] how gifted he is kind of building a staff, hiring people, creating a philosophy and getting everyone to buy in and feel good about it."

As long as his hires buy in to the excitement, insanity, and exhaustion that Preller stirs, don't expect an internal revolt.

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