His one great attempt at instant gratification was a bust. His gamble on an aged third baseman and a Triple-A pitcher might have been more fruitful had he actually taken $13 million and set it on fire for everyone to see.

(Update: Thursday morning the Padres traded Brad Hand and Adam Cimber to Cleveland.)

In between his Rock Star stage of 2014-15 and the Chase Headley-Bryan Mitchell misstep in December, however, there has been much to praise.

Or, at least, much about which Padres fans can be hopeful.


A.J. Preller’s maneuvers as Padres general manager have given rise to a rich farm system — and not just by spending $80 million on teenagers from Latin America two summers ago.

Whether Preller ever brings a World Series trophy to San Diego, the moves he has made as Padres general manager — even the horrible ones; in a way, the horrible ones most of all — reveal a man possessed of confidence and interested only in building toward a championship.

Mistakes happen. Ask Dayton Moore, Theo Epstein and Jeffrey Luhnow, personnel bosses of the Royals, Cubs and Astros, respectively, who built the three most recent World Series winners in a manner similar in various respects to what Preller is attempting.

But perhaps the most definitive thing that can be said about Preller nearly four years in — and with his boss estimating another two to three seasons as the time frame for contention — is that he does his job in a way that shows he knows bad decisions must be limited and overcome by franchise-altering ones.


Since the ill-fated attempt to build an instant contender before his first season in charge — which included the utter failure of the Matt Kemp deal and the jettisoning of two No. 1 draft picks, including a seeming star in Trea Turner — every move Preller has made has been with an eye toward a day further away.

He parlayed a flier on a past-his-prime closer into one of the game’s most exciting pitching prospects. He turned an average first baseman into another of the game’s most promising minor league arms. He spun an extra outfielder, a reliever and two low-dollar pitchers into one of the Padres’ most impressive major league arms and one of its top teenage infielders.

In all, his trades have netted six of the organization’s top 11 prospects and half of the top 18 (although, in fairness, he did deal away a couple who probably would be on that list).

Preller has made more than 50 trades and signed more than 100 players, some hardly worth mentioning when they were executed. Other than the Kemp flop, the book has not closed on the deals that do merit discussion.


And the pages keep turning.

The Major League Baseball trade deadline, as always, is July 31.

Who the Padres ship away and who they get, as usual, is the most interesting thing about the next couple of weeks.

The Padres are open for business. Almost every player on their roster could be had for the right price.


As we await whatever moves Preller makes to add to his already extensive list, now would seem to be a good time to revisit the good (hopefully) and bad (apparently) of his previous dealings.

The focus herein is on the deals that most contributed to or detracted from the process of building a winner.

Rodney … Hand, Ross

Three of the best cards Preller is holding now are a good place to start.

The Padres claimed Brad Hand off waivers at the start of the 2016 season. The lefty, who agreed to a three-year contract in January, is tied for third in the National League with 24 saves. Set-up man Kirby Yates was acquired the same way a year later and has 2.80 ERA and 1.01 WHIP in 100 games. The team signed Tyson Ross to a minor-league deal that became a $1.75 million one-year contract when he made the team. His 11 quality starts are tied for sixth in the NL.


If Preller can turn one or all of those low-risk acquisitions into a high-ceiling prospect or two, one of his marquee moves will have a challenger.

That would be the deal that brought the organization’s No. 8 prospect, right-hander Chris Paddack, from the Marlins in July 2016 in exchange for 39-year-old closer Fernando Rodney, who was signed by the Padres just six months earlier for $1.6 million. The 22-year-old Paddack was recently promoted to Double-A and could be in major league camp in the spring.

More for (a lot) more

The day before the 2015 season opener, the Padres acquired closer Craig Kimbrel and outfielder Melvin Upton Jr. in exchange for Cameron Maybin, Carlos Quentin and minor leaguers Jordan Paroubeck and Matt Wisler.

The chief aim was acquiring a top-notch arm to finish the many wins the Padres expected to collect that season. They also shed the oft-injured Quentin’s $24 million in remaining salary.


The ’15 season imploded, and the Padres were on the hook for a lot of money, including a sickening amount to Upton.

They ended up eating $17.5 million of what remained on Upton’s contract (after paying him about $20 million for his .257/.313/.435 line in 179 games) when they traded him to the Blue Jays. In return, they got pitcher Hansel Rodriguez, who after posting a 3.80 ERA and 1.19 WHIP in low-A last year, is working back from an elbow sprain and about to start pitching in the Arizona League.

What the Padres did with Kimbrel, who made $9 million in 2015, remains one of the jewels on which Preller’s legacy will eventually be appraised.

Preller defied virtually every expectation and held onto Kimbrel through the ‘15 season before getting four prospects out of the Red Sox for the closer who has the second-most saves (96) in the majors since the start of ‘16.


Two of those players, Carlos Asuaje and Manuel Margot, are in the majors with the Padres and fighting to remain part of the long-term plan. Left-handed pitcher Logan Allen has ascended to become the Padres’ ninth-ranked prospect and MLB.com’s 97th-ranked prospect overall. Shortstop Javier Guerra’s offense has lagged behind what the Padres expected, and he is batting .201 in Triple-A.

Allen, 21, has a 2.68 ERA and 1.06 WHIP in 97 1/3 innings in San Antonio. He could make his major league debut this season and be given every opportunity to be in the rotation in 2019.

(Quentin and Paroubeck are out of the game. Maybin is with the Marlins, his fourth team since departing Atlanta after one season. Wisler has a 5.27 ERA in 74 games for the Braves while bouncing between the majors and Triple-A.)

More expensive salvaging

James Shields was supposed to pitch a lot of innings and win a lot of games when the Padres signed him in January 2015 to a four-year, $75 million contract that has been surpassed in team history only by the six-year, $83 million deal Wil Myers signed in 2017 and Eric Hosmer’s eight-year, $144 million deal signed this past February.


Shields pitched a lot of innings and cost a lot of money.

And he got the Padres one of the most promising players in the minor leagues.

Less than 17 months after he was signed, the Padres sent Shields (and $38 million) to the White Sox for 16-year-old shortstop Fernando Tatis Jr., the third-ranked prospect in the minor leagues.

Essentially, the Padres paid $48 million for Tatis, who is batting .289/.358/.506 in Double-A and could well make the team out of spring training next year.


Alonso to Espinoza

Once pondered as the Padres’ first baseman of the future, Yonder Alonso was coming off arguably his best season when Preller sent him and journeyman reliever Marc Rzepczynski to the A’s for Drew Pomeranz and minor leaguers Jabari Blash and Jose Torres in December 2015.

Alonso was an All-Star in 2017, a year after Pomeranz was an All-Star for the Padres — two days before being dealt to the Red Sox for right-hander Anderson Espinoza.

Espinoza was Boston’s fourth-ranked prospect and became the Padres’ No.1 prospect. Tommy John surgery last spring has the 20-year-old Espinoza on the shelf until the fall, though he is still considered the Padres’ No. 7 prospect.

(After bouncing between the majors and Triple-A for the Padres, Blash was traded to the Yankees in December for Headley and Mitchell and has spent most of this season playing for the Angels’ Triple-A affiliate. Torres was suspended for the season following a December domestic violence arrest.)


Smith to Strahm

Seth Smith played in 136 games and got on base a fair amount in his one season with the Padres, which allowed Preller to get a reliever named Brandon Maurer just before the end of 2014.

The following December, the Padres signed reliever Ryan Buchter. Together, Maurer and Buchter provided a reliable late-inning work.

In January 2017, the Padres signed Trevor Cahill, who would start 11 games for them before he was packaged with Maurer and Buchter last July in a trade with the Royals for Matt Strahm, Esteury Ruiz and Travis Wood.

Strahm has a 2.34 ERA and 0.98 WHIP in 34 2/3 innings, and the 26-year-old lefty has emerged as a leading candidate to be in the rotation in 2019. Ruiz, a 19-year-old infielder for low-A Fort Wayne, is the Padres’ No. 11 prospect.


Headley-Mitchell uh-oh

The idea was not bad. The execution was awful.

If even one of the two players the Padres acquired from the Yankees in December were contributing, it might not have been such a horrible investment.

The idea: Get Headley for his veteran presence and ability to get on base before trading him during the season; get Mitchell, a solid Triple-A pitcher, and watch him blossom in the rotation.

The execution: There may have been no way to know Headley’s bat speed would disappear so quickly after he hit .300/.366/.455 in the second half of 2017. But the right questions were not asked of the right people regarding Mitchell, who sounded alarm bells right away with some in the organization for what they perceived to be a lack of drive.


Other than an unrelenting willingness to teach younger players, Headley’s contribution before being released in May was limited to six walks and six hits in 60 plate appearances. Mitchell, who has arguably been less effective in the bullpen since being demoted after seven starts, appears on the verge of a rehab assignment. After he comes back from his elbow issue, the Padres will have a decision to make about his future.

Galvis conundrum

The Padres have been difficult enough to watch for much of this season that no one wants to imagine what they would be like without Freddy Galvis scooping up virtually everything hit his way at shortstop.

Thing is, Galvis is a free agent after this season, and the player the Padres sent to the Phillies in December is a 22-year-old pitcher who had a 1.98 ERA in Triple-A before being promoted this month. Enyel De Los Santos has allowed eight runs in 10 2/3 innings in his two starts for the Phillies, but his future seems intriguing enough that it is fair to wonder whether the deal was worth it if Galvis ends up a one-year rental.

Especially considering the Padres would not have needed a stopgap shortstop if they had not traded Trea Turner in 2014 (more on that coming up).


A different A.J. contribution

The manager of the defending World Series champions could get a “Thank You” card one day if a center fielder named Edward Olivares helps the Padres get a trophy of their own.

A.J. Hinch was in his final days as the Padres’ assistant general manager in July 2014 — two weeks before Preller was hired — when he acquired an infielder named Yangervis Solarte from the Yankees in exchange for Headley.

Solarte ended up being one of the Padres’ most consistent performers over the next three seasons before being traded in January to the Blue Jays for minor leaguers Olivares and Jared Carkuff.

Carkuff is in independent ball, but Olivares is the organization’s 18th-ranked prospect and has 33 extra-base hits at Single-A Lake Elsinore.


Rock Star postscript

Of course, Kimbrel and Shields were just two cogs among the marquee moves Preller made before the 2015 season.

Among the big names acquired between December 2014 and April ‘15, the only remaining piece is Myers. He has hit .254/.333/.465 in 405 games, and his 1.5 WAR this season is tied for the Padres lead.

** For however the plethora of moves soured, several in the organization said at the time that of the players acquired, Myers had the best chance to be the only long-term Padre. Also, left-hander Jose Castillo, who came in the three-team deal in which the Padres sent Joe Ross and Turner to Washington, is on the disabled list (hamstring) and just beginning to show what he might be.

Turner, the No. 13 overall pick by the Padres two months before Preller was hired, finished second in the NL Rookie of the Year voting in 2017 and has a 3.0 WAR this season. Ross, rehabbing after Tommy John surgery, has a 3.95 ERA in 48 games (45 starts) for the Nationals. First baseman Jake Bauers, another prospect the Padres sent away in that deal, made his major league debut for Tampa Bay on June 7 and is batting .252/.368/.496 with five home runs in 36 games.


** There is nothing left of the Kemp deal except residual bitterness. And a lesson.

Even if Kemp hadn’t big-timed the Padres and let himself go once he got to San Diego, it seems safe to assess Preller did not get enough in return for catcher Yasmani Grandal and pitchers Joe Wieland and Zach Eflin (plus the roughly $22 million Kemp ended up costing the Padres).

Wieland bounced between the majors and Triple-A and is now in his second season in Japan, and Eflin is 7-2 with a 3.15 ERA for the Phillies. Grandal has a .779 OPS with 102 homers in 450 games for the Dodgers.

Especially considering the depth of the Dodgers’ farm system, the takeaway for Preller was to push for more in subsequent deals, which he has done.


Kemp was unloaded to the Braves in a swap of bad contracts, the Padres getting (and immediately designating for assignment) Hector Olivera.

** Justin Upton was acquired for four minor leaguers, all of whom have spent time bouncing between the majors and Triple-A.

Center fielder Mallex Smith is batting .284 with a.348 on-base percentage in 86 games for Tampa Bay this season, better numbers than Margot has for the Padres. Max Fried, the No. 7 overall pick in 2012, has a 3.86 ERA in 16 games (seven starts) for the Braves over the past two seasons and is ranked as Atlanta’s No. 8 prospect and the 70th prospect overall. Outfielder Dustin Peterson made his major league debut in May and is back in Triple-A. Jace Peterson hit .240/.326/.342 in 356 games for the Braves and is hitting .185 in 54 games for the Orioles this season.

Upton signed with the Tigers after 2015, which gave the Padres the 24th pick in the 2016 draft. They used that selection on third baseman Hudson Potts. The 19-year-old is batting .276/.349/.520 in Single-A and is the organization’s 15th-ranked prospect.


** Catcher Derek Norris, who hit .222 in 272 games over the next two seasons, cost the Padres pitchers Jesse Hahn and R.J. Alvarez. Hahn has bounced between the majors and Triple-A and is on the 60-day DL with the Royals. Alvarez is with Texas’ Triple-A affiliate.

Norris was traded in December ’16 for Pedro Avila, considered one of the Padres’ top 50 prospects and currently with a 4.08 ERA in 16 games (15 starts) for Lake Elsinore.

kevin.acee@sduniontribune.com