While Rome burned, A.J. Preller was in Korea.

Among other places.

That’s not to say the Padres’ season imploding or Andy Green’s demise were due to Preller being off scouting in foreign lands and checking in on minor league affiliates rather than at Petco Park or some of the other major league venues the Padres were visiting.

But those involved said it didn’t help and that his absence was conspicuous in what it portrayed to players and others about his relationship with Green and the GM’s focus on the major league product.


Such a vast disconnect doesn’t figure to happen again.

“With the new staff,” Preller said recently, “I think it’s important members of the front office will be there to help, be there for communication and conversation and to make sure everybody is up to speed and on the same page.”

If the Padres baseball operations department had T-shirts made the way players do, that is what one would say:

The Same Page.


And on the back: Collaboration.

Those are Preller’s catch phrases.

He lives them. His office has chairs arranged in a circle around which his lieutenants will sit for hours talking about their roster and others, about potential trades and free agents, about prospects.

That is, in Preller’s way of thinking and style of management, how one thing will lead to another. It is also how a unified message and singular focus are fostered.


Preller watches baseball, talks baseball, listens to others talk about baseball, plays basketball, drinks chocolate milkshakes and talks and listens about baseball some more. Sometimes he sleeps.

Since the hiring of Jayce Tingler as manager, Preller has infused virtually every public conversation with the idea of everyone in the organization pushing toward the same end in the same way.

New pitching coach Larry Rothschild, speaking in a corridor of the Omni Resort & Spa during MLB’s General Managers meetings this week, volunteered an observation after participating in a couple days of meetings involving Preller and his staff.

“The thing I’m reading here and seeing just in the short time, there is a genuine ability that everybody gets in the room and then there is one message transferred out of that room,” Rothschild said. “That’s the important thing.”


Yes, it is. To Preller foremost.

The feeling Green was not always a committed party to that process was the chief explanation behind his dismissal with two years remaining on his contract.

Green, who was the front man and chief spokesman for what was sometimes essentially a Quadruple-A baseball team the past four years, has declined the opportunity to speak publicly since being fired Sept. 21.

By all accounts, Green and Preller remain friendly. The way Preller speaks of Green’s strengths seems thoroughly genuine. Throughout the Padres organization, there is deep respect for Green as a man and a game manager. The recommendations given the Cubs (and other clubs) regarding Green’s in-game decisions and baseball knowledge were glowing and led to his being hired as new Cubs manager David Ross’ right-hand man.


According to those who worked under and above him, Green worked throughout his time with the Padres at improving his communication and cooperation. He got better. He wasn’t always given clear direction, and the challenges inherent in managing an ever shifting and often awful roster likely contributed to what his bosses believed was his inability/refusal to remain aligned with their vision for sustained periods.

Wherever the disconnect, Preller ultimately decided it couldn’t work.

The direction he went after firing Green was familiar. He had worked with Tingler in the Texas Rangers organization for several year, which Preller said was important because “I know what to expect.”

That doesn’t mean strictly an agreeable underling.


There is a perception among many in baseball that Preller engineered the hiring of Tingler all along. At least two men who were interviewed for the job have quietly complained the process clearly pointed to Tingler.

Whether that is an accurate appraisal, multiple sources in the organization said the scales appeared tipped toward Ron Washington almost until the end. Certainly, Executive Chairman Ron Fowler could have overruled Preller. Fowler called it “a tough decision” but said he, General Partner Peter Seidler and Preller were “united” and “believed in” Tingler.

“The reality is the GM has to hire his manager,” Fowler said the day Tingler was introduced.

Even if all one knows is Fowler’s public comments, which are often candid to the point of moving the earth under Padres fans’ feet, it isn’t difficult to believe Preller is accustomed to lively and forthright exchanges. The two speak virtually every day, sometimes four or five times. Fowler speaks his mind. Preller speaks his.


So it is perhaps unnecessary to understand Preller getting his man didn’t mean he got a “yes” man.

“Anybody who knows Jayce knows he’s not that,” Preller said. “I think it’s important to have people aligned. It’s not bad. It’s a crucial thing in being successful. From ownership to our staff to the manager to the field staff, people need to believe the same thing, feel the same thing. That doesn’t mean you’re not going to have knockdown drag-outs. My experiences with him working in a farm system is he speaks his mind. He’s going to do that constantly.”

Included in Tingler’s first public comments as Padres manager was an indication of just how he and Preller possess similar views on how a group of people work together.

“I’m going to rely on the team, whether that’s the staff, whether that’s front office,” Tingler said. “… I’m a guy that’s maybe a little bit different in the structure of how we do things. I like information and I like information from our coaches, from our staff. I really don’t believe in hierarchy.”


Speaking later that day, Preller was still careful to not say anything that could be construed as a slight of Green. However, Tingler’s words were like sweet music.

“What you want to do is hire good people and let them do their job,” Preller said. “You want to leverage on the people in that room. … It’s natural that would be the way a manager would run things. That’s the way we run things throughout the organization. To me, that’s exciting.”

Preller bears responsibility for final decisions. But he trusts his lieutenants. He did so on when acquiring a 17-year-old Fernando Tatis Jr. back in 2016 and when trading away Trea Turner back in 2015.

Preller’s focus has been purposefully directed outward the past few years because he felt it had to be. The Padres needed to acquire better players, and he’s a talent evaluator before he is anything. The organization was also re-working its player development operation, and he was often checking in on that direction.


He was around Petco Park and on road trips more in the first half of last season than he had been in 2018. He has long said he will spend more time with the big-league club as that roster becomes more stable and capable of winning.

That time has come.

Fowler declined to speak about the topic of Preller’s day-to-day responsibilities in the future. His expectations, Fowler believes, are clear.

Players and some of those who worked under Green have opined in recent months it is imperative Preller is around the big club more. He is popular among the players and coaches. They enjoy talking to him. They also know he is the boss. His being present to both understand the clubhouse dynamics and, perhaps even more importantly, to demonstrate support of a new, young manager will be highly beneficial, they say.


“I have a lot of faith in the manager, a lot of faith in the coaching staff we’ve put together,” Preller said. “We understand the last few years has been a process to build up to this point, a lot of hard work from a lot of people in the organization. We want to see that transfer up to the big-league level. I think it’s going to be very important to support, work with, help in any way possible, especially in the early part of the season. I would expect that would be part of the responsibility in the next year.”

