A.J. Preller may be real problem with San Diego Padres

Reports are that the San Diego Padres are poised to fire manager Jayce Tingler. The team’s true problems, though, may be one level higher up the bureaucracy.

As a practical matter, Padres President of Baseball Ops A.J. Preller is as secure as it’s possible to be. After all, team chairman Peter Seidler just this spring signed Preller to a four-year extension of a deal that already ran through 2022, and in the process upgraded his title from general manager.

A.J. Preller may be the real problem with the San Diego Padres

But since joining the Padres as executive vice president and general manager following the 2014 season, the only thing Preller has shown true ability at is spending Seidler’s money.

Winning? Not so much. The Padres have just one winning season under Preller’s leadership, that coming during the Covid-shortened 2020 season. San Diego just completed an expectation-laden 2021 season at 79-83, and it may say a lot about Preller’s ‘accomplishments’ that it’s the team’s best full-season record since Preller arrived.

Nobody can fault Preller’s aggressiveness, especially with Seidler’s checkbook. Padre spending on player personnel has nearly doubled since Preller’s arrival, from $90.6 million in 2014 to $174.1 million this season.

It will stay that way, too. In 2019, he signed Manny Machado to a $300 million deal that runs through 2028. This winter Fernando Tatis Jr. signed a 14-year, $340 million contract.

The Padres owe Eric Hosmer $60 million through 2025, and Blake Snell and Yu Darvish a combined $69 million through 2023. As a team, they are already committed to $116 million in contracts for 2023, and to $66 million as far off as 2025.

What the Padres have failed to do is nurture the talent potential they’ve added to the roster. Hosmer, Darvish and Snell were all disappointments this season.

Preller’s reputation may be taking an even bigger hit at the farm system level. Just a year or two ago, that system was said to be on the verge of delivering a slew of future major league stars. The list included Chris Paddack, Dinelson Lamet, Ryan Weathers,  McKenzie Gore, and Adrian Morejon.

How’s it worked out? Paddack got full rotation time this season, but went only 7-7 with a fairly lusty 5.07 ERA. Lamet made just nine starts, and Weathers was 4-7 with a 5.32 ERA in his 18 starts.

Morejon debuted in 2019, but has never established himself as a legit big leaguer. To date, he’s made just 16 appearances with a 5.91 ERA.

As for Gore, at age 22 he has just completed his second season as a Baseball America top 10 prospect, but without a whiff of big league action. At Triple-A El Paso, he made six starts, going 0-2 with a 5.85 ERA.

Obviously, all those arms are still young. But for the present, anyway, the Padres have nothing more to show for that talent-laden minor league pitching staff Preller accumulated than a bunch of filler hands. And the sense is  beginning to coalesce that Paddack, Weathers and Morejon may never make much of a mark.

If they don’t, either every scout in the  majors missed their judgment on those guys, or the Padres system somehow screwed them up.

The best way to measure any team executive’s work is to assess the value of his personnel moves. Since October of 2014, Preller has impacted the Padres roster for six seasons, 2015 through 2021. The numbers aren’t yet in for 2021, but between 2015 and 2020 the average impact of his personnel moves on team success was -1.3 games.

Here’s the season-by-season data on Preller. The figures represent, for each season, the cumulative Wins Above Average produced by trade acquisitions, free agent  signings or extensions, and rookie callups, plus the impact  on other teams of players either traded away or released by Preller.

2015         7.9

2016       -1.0

2017       -7.1

2018       -8.4

2019       -4.2

2020         4.9

In four of his first six seasons, then, Preller’s collective personnel moves have actually hurt San Diego’s position in the standings.

It’s possible, of course, that the data for 2021 will improve Preller’s image as a shrewd judge of talent. San Diego Padres fans better hope so; for better or worse they’ve got him through 2026.

This is not a defense of Jayce Tingler, who made the least out of what appeared to be a strong roster. But in dumping Tingler, it may also be fair to ask whether the Padres have actually solved their management problem…or whether that problem lies one step higher up the bureaucracy.