A.J. Preller, San Diego Padres
Impact: -3.3
Division rank: fourth
MLB rank: 17th
If this was a publicity contest, Preller’s front office would easily lead the league. His trades acquiring Juan Soto, Josh Bell, Josh Hader and, to a lesser extent Sean Manaea, all were headline-grabbers.
On the field, however, all the ink generated by Preller didn’t translate. The +1.1 WAA Soto contributed was offset by the -1.1 liability that Bell represented. Manaea, who was pummeled from start to finish by the Dodgers, cost San Diego -2.2 WAA, and Hader cost another -0.8.
Overall, the dozen players Preller traded for actually hampered San Diego’s effort to keep pace with the Dodgers by -5.5 WAA. You wouldn’t have guessed it reading the social media assessments, but it’s true.
That was a large part of the reason why the Padres were the fifth team in 2022 — joining the Cardinals, Astros, Phillies and Rays — to qualify for postseason play despite a negative contribution from their front office.
Overall, Preller’s front office made moves involving 55 major leaguers in 2022, of which 20 worked out in San Diego’s favor while 32 yielded a negative result. The Soto acquisition notwithstanding, San Diego ranked only 18th in net trade impact, standing fourth in both free agent and farm system impact.
In the end, what saved Preller was the residual talent base he had signed during previous seasons, and which continued to serve the Padres in 2022. That residual base — Yu Darvish, Jake Cronenworth, Blake Snell, Joe Musgrove, Manny Machado and Ha-Seong Kim — combined to contribute +15.4 WAA in 2022, more than enough residual talent to survive both the loss of Fernando Tatis and Preller’s unproductive moves and keep the Padres in playoff contention.