Mark Conner spent Saturday at his home in Nashville so he could watch his 7-year-old daughter Claire’s dance recital. The next day he was off to Atlanta for a pre-draft workout, one of 250 to 275 days a year the Padres’ amateur scouting director spends on the road.

He’s obviously interested in news regarding the big league team, but a hectic itinerary allows only glances at box scores, updates that scroll across his phone and occasional TV highlights in whatever hotel room he’s holed up in.

But not when Conner is on the East Coast. He’s usually fast asleep by the time those Padres games go final.

“It’s a very soft focus this time of year,” Conner admitted with a laugh, “on what’s happening at the major league level.”


His staff’s impact, nevertheless, is unmistakable as preparations continue for next month’s draft, the fifth since General Manager A.J. Preller elevated Conner from regional supervisor to his post atop the whole operation.

The 10 major leaguers produced since then are three more than the next best team, including six from a 2015 class without a first-round pick. No team has matched the three big leaguers developed from the 2016 class and only three other teams have graduated a player from the 2017 draft.

While a losing franchise — as the Padres have been since 2010 — might have an easier time pushing draftees onto inferior big league rosters, in a sense providing tryouts at the highest level, the Padres have been at .500 or better all but one day this season while getting contributions from eight players drafted since 2015.

Three — Eric Lauer, Joey Lucchesi and Cal Quantrill — will start in succession beginning Wednesday and two (Lucchesi and Lauer) were the first starting pitchers from their draft class to reach the majors. That development has allowed the Padres to fill from within a rotation that had in recent years been populated by veterans in town on short-term fliers.


Entering Tuesday, draftees from the Preller era — from first-rounders like Lucchesi and Lauer to seventh-rounder Nick Margevicius — had accounted for 155 of the rotation’s 255 innings

“It’s an area we’ve improved a lot in the last few years as far as identifying players and really understanding that these guys are going to come from top to bottom,” Assistant General Manager Josh Stein said. “It’s not just going to be the first pick in the first round that’s going to potentially have an impact on your team and on your depth.”

Ty France headlines the selections from the bottom of the draft, the San Diego State product blossoming well beyond his status as a 34th-round pick to provide depth as an injury fill-in.

Meantime, 17th-rounder Trey Wingenter is emerging as a go-to arm in the Padres’ bullpen; Lauer and Lucchesi, first- and fourth-round selections from 2016, have been asked to serve as the rotation workhorses in just their second year in the majors, and perhaps the biggest impact is yet to come.


Left-hander MacKenzie Gore, the No. 3 overall pick in 2017, headlines the 10 players drafted since 2015 populating the organization’s top-30 prospects as ranked by MLB.com. The way the Padres push players through their system, Gore and left-hander Ryan Weathers (No. 7 overall in 2018) even check in at No. 8 and No. 79, respectively, among the game’s top-100 prospects as potential arms to slot atop a rotation in a not-too-distant future.

“It’s a testament to the scouts we have on staff, the guys in the front office who are helping find these guys,” Conner said of his staff’s track record to date. “I think we’re extremely thorough and take a lot of pride in it being a 40-round draft and not losing sight of the depth of players that are out there.”

Improvements in the Padres’ process over the years include refining how they use proprietary info passed along from the research and development department and how they dig into players’ makeup, the real wild card in evaluating prospects. It’s also a big help having more bodies to cover ground — there are two more scouts under Conner than there were the year before his promotion — as well as an even wider array of experienced front-office types available to fly in for looks at players.

As general managers go, Preller — who cut his teeth as a scout — is arguably as involved in the draft as any head of baseball operations. The larger group of eyes getting looks on players includes senior advisor Logan White and special assistant David Post, both of whom have long, decorated track records of success in the draft in Los Angeles and Houston, respectively. Even international scouting director/minor league field coordinator Chris Kemp and special assistant James Keller — both of whom worked with Preller in Texas — provide opinions on players ahead of the draft.


“You’re constantly looking to acquire talent,” Conner said. “It’s not just on the field but in scouts as well.”

This, of course, is no time to pat anyone on the back.

An amateur scouting staff is only as good as their last class. The next draft is 13 days away. There remains much work to be done.

“That’s our job — find big leaguers who can help the organization win,” Conner said. “It’s our job to keep replenishing the system to the best of our ability and continue to get more guys up there.”


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MLB AMATEUR DRAFT

June 3-5 (Padres pick No. 6 overall)

The Padres lead the majors with 10 big leaguers produced from the previous four draft classes, eight of whom have contributed to the 2019 team. Those players are in bold.



2015

RHP Jacob Nix (3rd round, IMG Academy)

C Austin Allen (4th, Florida Inst. of Technology)

RHP Brett Kennedy (11th, Fordham)

RHP Trey Wingenter (17th, Auburn)

RHP Phil Maton (20th, Louisiana Tech)

3B Ty France (34th, SDSU)

2016

RHP Cal Quantrill (1st, Stanford)

LHP Eric Lauer (1st, Kent St.)

LHP Joey Lucchesi (4th, Southeast Missouri St.)

2017

LHP Nick Margevicius (7th, Rider)

