It’s not always fair to judge baseball operations leaders for free agent signings. In many cases, the biggest contracts are negotiated to varying extents by ownership. The same can hold true of major extensions. It’s just tough to know from the outside.

There’s obviously involvement from above in trade scenarios as well. But, when it comes to exchanging rights to some players for others, it stands to reason the role of the general manager is all the more clear.

In any event, for what it’s worth, it seemed an opportune moment to take a look back at the trade track records of some of the general managers around the game. We’ve already covered the Diamondbacks’ Mike Hazen, former Astros GM Jeff Luhnow, the Brewers’ David Stearns, the Angels’ Billy Eppler, the Rockies’ Jeff Bridich, the White Sox’ Rick Hahn, the Tigers’ Al Avila and the Braves’ Alex Anthopoulos. We’ll now turn our focus to the Padres’ A.J. Preller, whom the club hired late in the 2014 season. As you’ll see below, nobody can accuse Preller of sitting on his hands. Unfortunately for him and the Padres, the abundant trades Preller has swung haven’t yet led to any real progress in the standings for the long-suffering franchise (deals are in chronological order and exclude minor moves; full details at transaction link).

2014-15 Offseason

2015 Season

2015-16 Offseason

2016 Season

2016-17 Offseason

2017 Season

2017-18 Offseason

2018-19 Offseason

2019 Season

2019-20 Offseason

__

That’s a lot of action on the trade market, but has it been effective? (Poll link for app users)