When A.J. Preller sleeps, he dreams about baseball. When he’s awake, he watches baseball on television while simultaneously watching baseball on his computer and talking about baseball with whoever happens to be in the room at the time. He thinks about baseball when he’s playing basketball.

So this is a pretty good time of year for the Padres general manager.

“I love spring training,” he said Tuesday after watching some early camp arrivals pitch and take batting practice.

It’s always true. And never more so than now.


Preller might actually spend more time the next month watching workouts and games in major league camp than he does lurking around the far fields at the Peoria Sports Complex where the minor leaguers work.

“As the transition keeps going,” he said with an accompanying chuckle, “it gets more fun to be around the big-league team.”

Preller practically floated to Arizona, lifted by his giddy anticipation of a future he views as bright as the desert sky and so close and tangible he can he actually see and touch it.

The future might not be now for the Padres, but it is upon them for a time this spring.


The Padres have 13 homegrown players in camp as non-roster invitees, tied for fourth-most among all major league teams. And that doesn’t include their top-ranked prospect, 19-year-old shortstop Fernando Tatis Jr., acquired via trade two summers ago when he was 17 and before he’d ever played a game in the White Sox organization.

(Kevin Acee )

Among those 14 players are four of the franchise’s top-10 prospects and three of the top 100 prospects in all of baseball, as rated by Baseball America. Just five teams have more top-100 prospects in their major league camp.

Besides the disheartening reality that the Dodgers, in the Padres’ division and with the capability to spend as much as anyone, are among those with four top-100 prospects on the verge of the big leagues, the above numbers indicate the Padres aren’t the only team with a loaded system. Also, none of the Padres’ prospects are on the 40-man roster and all are unlikely to begin this season in San Diego.


If, as the Padres expect, their prospects are going to form the core of a contending big-league team, they are still at least a year and maybe two from being that team.

But the wave of good young players approaching Petco Park’s shore does show the progress of a changing tide.

“It’s healthy for the organization,” Preller said. “… When you look out and you have guys who are going to play in the big leagues in a year, two years, three years, guys that have a ceiling on top of it, that are coming into the game, gaining experience, I think that’s really valuable.

“The other aspect is from a scouting and development standpoint, when you have guys who have been identified and done well, that our coaches have spent a lot of time with them and now we’re seeing them at the big-league level, it’s good for morale in the organization for guys to see some of the fruits of their labor.”


Padres Executive Chairman Ron Fowler was asked recently what he was looking forward to this spring training. Fowler mentioned his belief that Freddy Galvis will be an excellent short-term solution at shortstop. He said he was impressed and looking forward to seeing a bigger Wil Myers. He hopes to witness improvement in Manny Margot, Austin Hedges and Hunter Renfroe after their first full season in the majors. He spoke of other guys who will be in the lineup for the March 29 season opener.

But the first thing he mentioned was a group that won’t be in San Diego quite that soon.

“I’m most excited to see how some of the young prospects perform at this level,” he said.

To suggest the Padres are not focused on the current major league product would be insulting to the work the coaches, players and personnel people do. But it is notable, nonetheless, that they don’t even try to shroud their excitement about what they believe is beyond 2018.


“It’s exciting for us as an organization to finally get to that time when all of our key guys are starting to appear in major league spring training,” manager Andy Green said. “… To have Cal Quantrill, Joey Lucchesi, Eric Lauer and Jacob Nix walking around, to have Fernando Tatis and Luis Urias here, and you look further down in the system and you know Michel Baez is coming, and you know MacKenzie Gore is coming, and you know there is a long list of guys who are going to fight to get here, it’s exciting to be at that point where those waves are staring to arrive.”

A fan base that has gone a full decade with a playoff Padres team has been hearing for a couple years the accolades about the Padres’ stocked minor-league system.

It features six players among Baseball America’s top 100 prospects. The top 100 list done by ESPN includes seven Padres prospects. Some say the Padres have the deepest minor-league system in baseball, the consensus at least settling on the Friar farm being at least among the top three.

Fans have been encouraged to buy into what has come to be known inside the franchise and from the outside as “the process.” How much and how soon the highly-touted kids might help will begin to come into clearer focus over the next month.


Because we are going to get a glimpse of some of these kids who have been doing damage to varying degrees in the minor leagues alongside the Padres’ current major leaguers and playing in Cactus League games against other teams’ major leaguers.

“That’s the exciting part,” Preller said. “You get to see guys in A-ball or Double-A or in an amateur environment. But to see them on a major league field – you don’t want to do too much evaluating, but you’ll get an idea of how guys fit in and certain things guys still need to work on. It gives you a little better sense when you see them against major league competition.”

kevin.acee@sduniontribune.com