Pressure on San Diego Padres to win now, or else

As San Diego general manager AJ Preller’s first-year anniversary approaches this month, his performance brings to mind a bit of Shakespearean prose: “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”.

Preller spent last winter in a trading and buying frenzy, adding expensive and well-known players Matt Kemp, Justin Upton and Wil Myers, and pitchers James Shields and Craig Kimbrel. It was a splashy show for a small market franchise, which has not played many meaningful games since its last brush with the postseason – a one-game play-off loss to the Colorado Rockies for a wild-card spot in 2007.

The results are not as much fun. The Padres are 52-56, trying desperately to stay in wild-card contention.

Usually teams on a tight budget take a deliberate, crafty route in building a contender, nurturing a core of young, talented players and filling the roster with less expensive, short-term veterans. The Padres gave up on the formula, even though it has served the likes of Kansas City, Pittsburgh, Tampa Bay and Oakland quite well in recent years.

Worse, it appears that Preller bet his entire stake on one spin. The flurry of trades decimated the organisation’s valuable cache of promising prospects and potential stars.

Preller took a flying leap over the financial chasm to engage in high-budget strategy, without the resources to compete long-term with the big city boys. Then, by trading away the core of his farm system, he burnt the bridge back.

Only a wild Shakespearean plot twist can forge a happy ending.

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