The 2024 Padres have become A.J. Preller’s most impressive team to date (2024)

Tell A.J. Preller this is his best team, his best job as general manager, and he probably would demur. The 2024 San Diego Padres are good. The 2023 Padres, at least on paper, were better.

Ah, but the game is not played on paper, or even the precious laptop of your favorite analytically obsessed executive. The failure of the ‘23 Padres, who finished 82-80 and failed to make the playoffs, will endure as one of baseball’s great mysteries. The success of the ‘24 club, without Juan Soto, Blake Snell, Josh Hader, Seth Lugo and Michael Wacha, also contains its share of the unknowable.

This much is clear: Preller, making trades at his usual breakneck pace, built a deeper roster and more functional offense, despite opening the season with a payroll nearly $85 million lower than it was a year ago. The 2024 Padres are not simply a collection of stars. They are a team, dotted with complementary parts. And Preller seems far more at peace with this year’s manager, Mike Shildt, than he did with last year’s, Bob Melvin.

It’s too soon to celebrate the Padres, who were 50-49 at the All-Star break and are 13-11 since a 19-4 run that elevated their season. But they entered Tuesday holding the top wild card in the NL, with playoff odds of better than 90 percent. In the postseason, an offense again including Fernando Tatis Jr., a rotation reinforced by the returns of Joe Musgrove and Yu Darvish and a bullpen bolstered by the trades for Jason Adam, Tanner Scott and Bryan Hoeing at the deadline would make the team a legitimate World Series threat.

Preller’s management style has been an issue in the past, but his aggressiveness in the trade market is perhaps the Padres’ biggest competitive advantage, and his work in putting this group together was a particular tour de force. The five-player return from the New York Yankees for Soto and Trent Grisham provided a foundation, yielding Michael King, one of the game’s top starters since early May; Kyle Higashioka, a catcher enjoying a career-best offensive season; and top 100 prospect Drew Thorpe, a pitcher who became the centerpiece of a deal in March for another top starter, Dylan Cease.

Next came the acquisition of Luis Arraez at the start of May, a transformative moment for an offense that already was making greater contact with the arrival of Rookie of the Year candidate Jackson Merrill, the rare prospect Preller declined to trade, and return of Jurickson Profar, a $1 million bargain in free agency.

Arraez, because of his defensive shortcomings on the right side of the infield, might be only slightly above replacement level from an analytical perspective. But batting leadoff, he sets a tone with his energy and approach. Merrill and Profar also bring energy, and Merrill, arguably the team’s MVP, is a major upgrade over Grisham in center. As Tatis, Xander Bogaerts and Manny Machado dealt with various physical issues, the Padres needed the boost from others.

Some of what befell the Padres last season was simply bad luck. They were 9-23 in one-run games, compared to 20-17 this season, and 2-12 in extra innings, compared to their current 8-1. The team’s .241 batting average with runners in scoring position, 26th in the league, was inexplicable given the level of talent. Entering Tuesday, the Padres were hitting .276 in those situations, third in the league. Their strikeout rate was the league’s lowest, down almost four percent from a year ago.

The bullpen is another difference. Melvin was caught short last season when Robert Suarez hit the injured list with an elbow problem on April 20 and missed three months. This time, Preller kept piling in options for Shildt.

A waiver claim of Jeremiah Estrada from the Chicago Cubs last November was an under-the-radar success. Adrian Morejon finally proved worthy of the $22 million (half in penalty) the team invested in him out of Cuba. The acquisitions of Adam and Scott cemented the mix, giving Shildt three relievers, including Suarez, who are willing to pitch in any of the late innings. Hader, who restricted himself to one-inning appearances, left Melvin with less flexibility.

The 2023 Padres were star-driven. This year’s team includes a number of valuable complementary parts – Estrada, Morejon, Donovan Solano, David Peralta. The two pitchers Preller acquired for Soto in addition to King and Thorpe, Randy Vasquez and Jhony Brito, also have provided meaningful depth.

The environment around the team also might be better because fewer prominent players are preoccupied with individual concerns. Snell, Hader, Lugo and Wacha were among the potential free agents on the 2023 Padres. Soto’s turn on the open market was a year away, and for whatever reason, he rarely exhibited the same joy and presence that he did during his best years in Washington and now does in New York.

Soto and the others did not necessarily act as mercenaries. But the members of this year’s team who are due to become free agents – Scott, Higashioka, Donovan Solano and Profar (again) – play, for the most part, less significant roles. Whether that contributes to greater cohesion is difficult to say.

Just as difficult is determining how Melvin could guide the team to the National League Championship Series in 2022, then fail to coax another successful season out of largely the same group in ‘23. The effect the tension between Preller and Melvin had on the players, if any, is impossible to measure. But when Preller allowed Melvin to leave for the San Francisco Giants, it created an opening for Shildt, the NL Manager of the Year with the St. Louis Cardinals in 2019.

Shildt loves to teach the game and highlight its finer points, conducting regular Ball Talk sessions with his players. The impact of his style is yet another intangible that is subject to debate. But the Padres certainly seem to be playing with greater intensity than they did last season. Their 35 comeback wins are eight more than they had a year ago.

A year later, it’s still difficult to make sense out of a 2023 team that had the third-best run differential in the NL, but tied for the seventh-worst record. Tatis, Bogaerts and Machado did not have their best years. Soto needed a big September to approach his usual numbers. But the Padres got major contributions from others. Ha-Seong Kim finished with 17 homers and 38 stolen bases. And when catcher Austin Nola faltered, Gary Sánchez hit 19 homers and Luis Campusano produced an .847 OPS.

The team went 20-7 in September after the pressure mostly was off, demonstrating what might have been. Few imagined they would be better this season, after trading Soto, losing three starting pitchers to free agency and reducing their payroll by approximately one-third. Yet here they are.

The long-term deals Preller committed under late owner Peter Seidler eventually might haunt the Padres, who by Fangraphs’ calculations already have $156.5 million in salary committed for 2027 and $113.5 million in ‘30 (the Los Angeles Dodgers, by comparison, are at $203.6 million in ‘27 and $151 million in ‘30). But Padres fans sure don’t seem concerned. The team ranks third in per-game attendance, and has averaged more than 3 million total over the past three seasons.

In a wide-open NL, the Padres’ chances seem as good as any club’s. Preller always finds players. This time, he might have picked the right ones.

(Top photo of A.J. Preller: Orlando Ramirez/Getty Images)

Ken Rosenthal is the senior baseball writer for The Athletic who has spent nearly 35 years covering the major leagues. In addition, Ken is a broadcaster and regular contributor to Fox Sports' MLB telecasts. He's also won Emmy Awards in 2015 and 2016 for his TV reporting. Follow Ken on Twitter @Ken_Rosenthal