I was scanning the Padres roster and it seems to be almost completely acquired by trade or free agency. There are a handful of no-name guys on the 40 man who are home grown and quite a few Latin american signings.

I'm used to seeing in a stl roster with so many home grown players. But Preller definitely doesn't subscribe to the build from within model - have any of his "prospects" gone on to be successful? It seems he has won most of the trades where he's given away talent.

Tatis was originally signed by the White Sox, but for all purposes it seems like he counts as a homegrown player, having never played a professional game for the Sox.

One of the first deals Preller did in SD involved trading away Trea Turner in the deal that brought back Wil Myers. He also traded away Yasmani Grandal who was pretty good for a few years. But in general he’s done ok I think.

But Preller definitely doesn't subscribe to the build from within model - have any of his "prospects" gone on to be successful? It seems he has won most of the trades where he's given away talent.

Prospects fail. Makes sense to cash them in for proven players if money is seemingly not an object.

In 2014 Grandal and Eflin were traded for Kemp and Trea Turner was traded for Wil Myers. So, he started out tossing valuable players after guys who turned out to be not as good. I didn't look at an extensive list or something, but, perhaps he got better once he'd actually drafted the guys.

Anyway, regarding Lugo - he was a solid-to-excellent reliever for the Mets, with a 2.91 ERA in 300 IP. They occasionally tried him as a starter but in 38 starts over the years, he averaged a little over 5 IP and a 4.35 ERA.

Anyway, regarding Lugo - he was a solid-to-excellent reliever for the Mets, with a 2.91 ERA in 300 IP.

Yeah, but he hasn't been really good since 2019. Seems like $7M p.a. is just the price for cromulent RPs now.

Some of these are prospect for prospect trades or vet + prospect for vet + prospect, etc. If we count Tatis as a trade, then that's trading for a prospect. Cronenworth was a throw-in to the Pham-Renfroe swap ... Esteban Quiroz and a pitcher went the other way too, they just didn't pay off. Grisham was mainly a prospect swap for Lauer and Urias -- both of those guys have been good. Myers already discussed. It doesn't take a genius to trade for juan Soto.

He has done a lot of good work to build the rotation. They had a (seemingly) crazy rich farm system a couple of years ago so he swapped several extras for Darvish, a bunch more extras (and Bednar) for Musgrove and yet more for Clevinger. Quantrill has been excellent and Naylor good for the Guardians, too soon to tell how the Darvish and Musgrove trades will work out but the Padres got what they wanted. It's probably too soon to tell if the Manaea and Snell trades work out in SD's favor.

I suppose one thing I've got to give him credit for is that he does tend to at least get what he traded for. Even a guy like Myers wasn't great but he was OK for several years. Darvish and Musgrove have been solid, presumably Soto will be excellent. He'd probably rather not have made the Clevinger deal and maybe not the Grisham deal but Grisham has been good. If he had any idea on Cronenworth, that was a steal. Hosmer aside, he might have been a good GM for the Angels, he'd probably be much better at putting reliable mediocrity around Trout & Ohtani and get them to the playoffs most years.

Because it's an interesting one:

Grisham 1300 PA, 100 OPS+, 8.4 WAR, 4.1 WAA with good CF defense
Urias 1150 PA, 106 OPS+, 6.3 WAR, 2.5 WAA, solid defense at all 3 IF spots
Lauer 288 IP, 105 ERA+, 3.2 WAR, 0.6 WAA

The Padres also got a magical 2020 out of Zach Davies before throwing him into the Darvish trade. If they'd kept him, Urias would have given the Padres yet another SS option although I suppose if they'd kept him, they probably don't sign Kim.

And as I always point out, the Rays also totally whiffed on Trea Turner. In that trade, the Padres sent Turner and the solid Joe Ross to the Nats but received nobody from the Nats. The Rays received Stephen Souza Jr and Travis Ott from the Nats but the Nats received nobody from the Rays. The Rays could have had Turner and Ross for themselves and effectively traded them for Stephen Souza Jr. The Rays didn't really get anything out of the players SD sent either. Probably the worst trade in Rays history, a very lopsided one even by MLB historical standards and it all kinda gets lost in the 3-team structure.

Yeah, the really active teams (and willing to take on salary ) have been Seattle, Boston, Toronto, LAA , LAD and now Texas/NYMPhillies which is too soon to rate. But Preller has been more effective for his team than most. LAD might be better with freeman, Turner, scherzer, etc.

I would argue he will also be better than Texas, Phil, and NYM when all is said and done.