The Padres and president of baseball operations A.J. Preller have agreed to a multi-year contract extension, per a team announcement. The exact terms of Preller’s new deal are not yet known.
Preller, 48, was entering the final year of his contract in 2026 but now figures to continue his work at the helm in San Diego for the foreseeable future. He began his tenure with the Padres late in the 2014 season, and while it took several years for him to pull the organization out of the basement of the National League they’ve become one of the NL’s premiere teams during the 2020s. The team has gone to the playoffs four times in the last six seasons, with a 470-400 record during that time that’s good for a .540 winning percentage. The Padres have only made it to the NLCS once in that timeframe, but it’s still undeniably the most successful stretch in franchise history given that the organization had just five postseason appearances under its belt in the 45 years it existed prior to Preller joining the team.
After more than a decade leading the Padres, Preller has become well-known among fans all across baseball as the league’s most free-wheeling executive. He pilots the Padres with dynamic energy, frequently making the sort of aggressive trades that most front office leaders around the game would shy away from. The results, in terms of stars brought into the fold, have spoken for themselves. In recent years, Preller has traded for Yu Darvish, Blake Snell, Josh Hader, Joe Musgrove, Mason Miller, Dylan Cease, and Juan Soto at the height of their careers in order to augment a lineup built around likely future Hall of Famer Manny Machado and homegrown star Fernando Tatis Jr.
Impressive as Preller’s work to turn the Padres franchise into one of the premiere organizations in the majors has been, it’s not been without flaws. Extensions for players like Machado, Tatis, Darvish, Musgrove, and Jake Cronenworth (as well as the free agent deal signed by Xander Bogaerts) have contributed to a bogged-down payroll that has limited the team’s flexibility in recent seasons and forced some creative moves such as trading away Soto ahead of his final year under team control, as well as signing players like Nick Pivetta and Michael King to unorthodox contracts in order to fill out the rotation. Preller and his front office have managed to pull off the balancing act of keeping the team’s spending under control without trading away Tatis or another major asset under long-term club control from the big league club so far.
It’s a task that figures to only get more difficult as time goes on. For now, though, Preller has managed to keep his house of cards in San Diego from collapsing well enough to earn himself the opportunity to continue the work, and it’s not terribly hard to see why ownership would have confidence in his abilities. Preller’s penchant for trading away top prospects (including CJ Abrams, MacKenzie Gore, James Wood, and Leo De Vries) has been compensated for by a knack for consistently churning out high-rated prospects, a few of which (such as Tatis and Jackson Merrill) have even made their way to the majors as impactful pieces of the club. Preller has also developed a knack for putting together talented bullpens stocked with high-end talent. Even after losing players like Hader and Robert Suarez, the team can still field an elite relief corps thanks to Miller, Adrian Morejon, Jeremiah Estrada, Jason Adam, and others.
Notably, the vote of confidence Preller is receiving from ownership comes at a time when the team is in the midst of a transition at its highest levels. Longtime owner Peter Seidler abruptly passed away from cancer back in 2023, and since then the team has been under the control of a variety of Seidler’s family members and associates are various points in time. After some internal drama regarding the future of the franchise, things appear to be headed towards a potential sale of the franchise as the Seidler family announced that they’re exploring that possibility back in November. It’s unclear whether a sale will come to fruition at all, much less if progress is being made on that front. With that said, if a sale were to occur in the next couple of years, this extension ensures that Preller will remain in place to help guide the team through that transition on the field and provide some stability to the hypothetical new ownership group as they get settled in.
He’s one of the best general mangers I’ve ever seen, might be the padres best move this offseason
I remember I was at a game with my old friend of mine and we walked up to him and said “hello Mr., do you mind if you can sign our balls for us?”
And with the kindness out of his heart he signed them
Preller isn’t just a general manger, he one of the kindest souls I’ve met
Thank you Preller!
And then everyone clapped!
He performed CPR on my father and brought him back to life just last week! And my father died over 20 years ago!!!
Haters gonna hate
The best offseason GM in MLB history.
He makes great in season moves too
Like trading a 23 yo Trea Turner.
Haters gonna hate
Or trading for 16 year old Tatis.
Well deserved. As sad as it is no other gm has sustained success like this for the Padres.
People can gripe about his trades free agent signings but end of the day he’s created competitive teams without those prospects and free agent misses
If Padres had decided to let him go he’d be out of work all of 5 minutes.
Most important, he’s turned the Padres from a sad sack small market franchise to a perennial contender that was second in the NL in attendance with 3.43 million last year.
Any other GM been allowed to hire this many field managers without getting fired?
People forget the Padres were mostly cheeks outside like 5 seasons in their history prior to him coming along. They’ve been relatively competitive during his tenure and he’s great with scouting and building a farm system which are important to compliment the major league roster. For his flaws he’s still a good exec
Yes, Preller’s up there but he does not hold the record for most managers in single tenure. Effectively Wild did a deep dive on this.
The definition of insanity.
insanity is Preller’s native tongue
Now all the haters (most of which would love AJ on their team) can shut up!
Probably doesn’t get the credit he deserves. It’s a real shame they have to compete with the dodgers in the same division. Incredible he’s put them in a position to nearly topple them a few times now.
What? Everyone here strokes it to this guy. Rarely has there been a GM who has accumulated less that has been showered w more admiration.
Accomplished *
ESL
“Everyone here strokes it”
I think you’re projecting
I recognize that he’s had a successful tenure, but there’s nothing sexual about it.
That’s just a you thing
Preller, what a GM. He always finds prospects to trades, makes big moves, he got Miller!
like leo de vries needed to be scrounged up. top intl prospect of his class, top 20 prospect his entire career. time will tell how that one plays out, could still go either way quick
This dude has never been afraid to make the big deals. Well deserved imo.
This makes me sick to my stomach
He should be in prison for the Bogaerts contract and the Machado extension.
I think you have to view those signings as investments. Petco is packed every game the past few seasons.
Let’s see how you feel in another year or 2 when those 2 contracts are completely underwater and absolutely crippling the team’s ability to compete for like half a decade.
Peter Seidler was the one that pushed those deals. He waned a bat when he signed Xander…tried to get judge and Turner that offseason. Had to settle for the third best bat in Xander.
Peter loved manny and was never gonna let him become a free agent.
Preller worked for Peter. Not every move can be blamed on Preller. Peter wanted to win a World Series in his lifetime and pushed his chips in.
While these deals may look rough in years to come. Nobody can blame them for going for it. Peter is beloved in San Diego for what he did.
I am aware of that situation, but both of those contracts feel like he was bidding against himself.
I highly doubt any other teams would have come anywhere close to matching them.
King- I don’t disagree.
It was a I don’t care what the cost is I’m getting a deal done type of moves.
I mention this with only love. The Eric Hosmer signing ($144M) was the foundation all of this was built upon.
Happy to keep Preller around. He is an all in PBO and good for the game. Makes for exciting baseball.
They’ve likely been very close finalizing the contract, but after Manny and to some extent Musgrove and Tatis started to bring it up publicly, seems as though FO felt a need to get it done.
Definitely think the players being in his corner was apart of the reason. Add on King saying the main reason he resigned was his faith in Preller building a playoff caliber team.
Fantastic. Now let’s get ownership figured out.
Congrats to AJ-The man who made San Diego baseball fun again!
Probably a top 5 GM when you consider it’s a nightmare trying to compete with the Dodgers for any team in baseball over the past 5-6 years, but he’s done well.
I would have liked to have seen him sign Littell this season, but he’ll have something up his sleeve like always at the Trade deadline.
Well deserved.
Raise that “makes big moves” banner proud, sd!
ESL
“Raise that “makes big moves” banner proud, sd!”
Troll gonna troll
Solid move.
Wow.. this guy got extended bc he picked up Nick Castellanos for the min?
Hey Manny, you got your guy AJ & Castellones now keep him in line & pump him up. Preller will be with the Padres for a contract term. Good signings AJ keep it up.
He’s been GM for 11 seasons and has a .488 winning percentage, zero division titles, and zero pennants. He’s run top ten payrolls for 4 of the past 5 seasons and is expected to be in the top ten again this year, with a team that, according to Fangraphs, has a 23% chance of making the playoffs.
I’ll take those 23% odds.
Nobody who knows baseball believes that number is accurate.
Simm
“Nobody who knows baseball believes that number is accurate”
What do you, as, presumably, someone who thinks they know baseball think the number should be?
There is real competition to make the playoffs but I’d put it around 45%. Which is a decent number to start the season.
Certainly above 23%. The team has won back to back 90 or more games and the team is better on paper now than to start last season.
preller is maybe perfectly rated. too many vastly overrate, and other vastly underrate. he does a good job keeping the team competitive in an impossible division, and SD fans should kiss his shoes for helping shape the great baseball culture there. but he is also prone to somewhat short-sighted, ‘i must have this guy’ kind of moves and he always seems to have a top-heavy roster by design, as his high-level backups without clear star potential usually wind up in trades. this might be a tomlin situation, where the job is his until he steps down
This looks really good for any team wanting to sign the Padres. They don’t need to worry about finding a successful GM. His track record proves he’s in the top 5 to 10 of all MLB GM’s. Now, he just needs to lift them over the Dodgers. That’s a steep hill to climb for every GM in the league. Congrats AJ let’s keep churning the ingredients & get us a championship.🏆
As a Dodger fan, I’m happy that Preller is coming
Not in that dumb “because he sucks” way, but because baseball, and the NL West, is more interesting with him in it.
As others have said, under his guide, the Padres have become relevant.
He makes creative trades. He’s kept the team afloat during owner turmoil.
I’m pretty happy with the Dodgers’ F/O, but if it were Preller at the helm, I imagine I’d be pretty happy too.
As Simm mentioned, Preller makes the game more exciting. And while I question almost all of his big moves, he drafts well, and does a very good job on his smaller acquisitions.