When the work was finished, and five trades involving 22 players had been executed within six hours, A.J. Preller's peers called him everything from a "lunatic" to a "genius," a divergence befitting Major League Baseball's most polarizing executive.
In the time between breakfast and lunch on the West Coast, Preller, the San Diego Padres' frenetic general manager, acquired eight players and parted with 14 others. He landed another impact talent (star closer Mason Miller) and plugged every imaginable hole on his roster, but he also dealt 11 prospects from a sagging farm system, including its best (shortstop Leo De Vries).