SAN DIEGO — There has been a lot going on with the Padres.

President of baseball operations A.J. Preller was consumed much of October with a managerial search and is now overseeing the execution of the Padres’ offseason.

Among the issues occupying team chairman John Seidler’s time has been the potential sale of the team.

In the midst of all that uncertainty, there has been more uncertainty.

Preller, the architect who has masterminded the building (and rebuilding) of the Padres’ roster and has, by extension, played an immense role in the club possibly fetching a record price for an MLB franchise, has just one year remaining on his contract.

And that presents something of an inflection point for Seidler, even as he leads the franchise and its various owners during the process of what is considered a virtually certain sale.

Seidler vowed this week that the course of the organization will not change, and people familiar with his thinking said the Padres chairman wants to keep the team’s leadership intact through any transition.

“You’d have to be a little crazy to come in and fix something that isn’t broken,” one of those people said.

With that being the case, the time for Preller to get a multi-year extension seems nigh.

Padres CEO Erik Greupner, who received a contract of the same length at the same time as Preller in 2021, was extended last year through the end of the decade.

In addition to overseeing the team doubling its local non-media revenue over the past four years, Greupner is widely credited with helping shepherd the Padres through financial turmoil brought on by the accumulation of substantial debt in 2023 and ‘24. Sources said Greupner, who received a small stake in the team from late chairman Peter Seidler, was courted by other organizations in different leagues.

Multiple people across the league opined at the general manager meetings in Las Vegas this week that Preller would probably have his pick of available jobs if he departed the Padres.

That has never seemed to be his intention.

“I love San Diego and the city and the organization,” he said recently. “I enjoy my job and hopefully do an OK job with it.”

The sides have talked enough about their mutual interest in Preller remaining, multiple sources said, that an extension could be an inevitability.

“That’s a conversation that’s happening between John (Seidler, the Padres chairman) and A.J. this offseason,” Greupner said this week. “I think we continue to remain confident that A.J. is going to be our president of baseball operations past 2026. We’re excited to continue to build on the success that we’ve had here.”

The process

The success the Padres have built in Preller’s 11 seasons in charge of baseball operations can sometimes be obscured within the minutiae of the on-field shortcomings and manager turnover.

Preller was hired in August 2014 as the Padres’ third general manager in six years.

With the Cardinals’ John Mozeliak retiring and the Nationals firing Mike Rizzo in 2025, Preller is now the second-longest-tenured GM in the major leagues behind the Yankees’ Brian Cashman, who was hired in 1998.

When Preller arrived in San Diego, the Padres were on their way to their sixth losing campaign in seven seasons and had not made the playoffs since 2006.

They would continue to be mostly horrible in Preller’s first five seasons, as the organization was upfront about revamping the way it operated while aiming to open its championship window going into the 2020s.

The 2020 season brought the Padres’ first postseason appearance since ‘06 and their first postseason series win since 1998.

They have made the playoffs in three of the five seasons since. Their 183 victories over the past two seasons were the most in franchise history in successive seasons, and their playoff appearances at the end of those seasons were their first in back-to-back years since 2005-06.

With one more playoff appearance, the Padres will have played in the postseason as many times in the Preller era as they did under any of the nine general managers who oversaw the franchise’s first 45 years of existence.

Preller and the circle of advisers to which he often assigns credit have gone about making the Padres contenders and maintaining the quest for the organization’s first championship in various ways. But at the core of their mission is a commitment to amassing amateur talent and an unwavering belief they can do so again and again.

Usually, that young talent has been used to acquire veteran talent.

The Padres have made more trades involving major league players since the 2014-15 offseason than every team but the Seattle Mariners. No team has traded away more of its top 10 prospects than Preller’s Padres.

Center fielder Jackson Merrill and reliever Adrián Morejón are the only players originally drafted or signed by the Padres to have contributed significantly to the team’s run of success, though right fielder Fernando Tatis Jr. was acquired as a 17-year-old who had never played professionally.

Certainly, it is valid to wonder how long the Padres can continue to mortgage the future. But it is also defensible to say that after riding the wave of Peter Seidler’s freewheeling spending to build teams in 2022 and ‘23, Preller has done his best work the past two seasons. He has worked within budget constraints due largely to the team having handed out multiple big contracts.

The Padres likely would not have made the playoffs in 2024 had Preller not revamped the bullpen at the trade deadline. And it is also conceivable that the 2025 season might have ended before October if not for the players he added in July.

Moreover, the players acquired at this year’s deadline should play a vital role as Preller builds a contending team within budget.

The Padres got their everyday catcher (Freddy Fermin) and left fielder (Ramón Laureano), closer (Mason Miller) and a back-end starter (JP Sears) for 2026 in deals made at the deadline. All but Laureano are under team control beyond ‘26.

The cost — as it was to get, among others, Mike Clevinger in 2020, Juan Soto in 2022 and a retooled bullpen in ‘24 — was a bevy of minor leaguers that included Leo De Vries, one of the top prospects in the game.

Preller hasn’t shied away from spending that human capital since he moved Max Fried and Trea Turner months after taking over.

Those two players are among the nearly two dozen who were in the Padres’ organization at some point during Preller’s tenure and have gone on to become All-Stars for other teams. The majority of those were traded, though some left via free agency.

Preller and his lieutenants love the fact that, in addition to the Padres having five players in each of the past two All-Star games, no other MLB team has had more former players on All-Star rosters in those two games.

They view it as an illustration of their ability to acquire talent.

The lineup card

It is tradition in baseball to present players, managers or executives with a framed lineup card from games representing milestones.

Hanging in Preller’s office is a lineup card from Aug. 9, 2014.

That game in Pittsburgh was from the Padres’ first victory with him as GM.

The names on that card reflect a club that went 77-85.

Eric Stults was the starting pitcher. Everth Cabrera led off. Jedd Gyorko hit cleanup. Three of the 13 position players listed on the card manager Bud Black used that day finished the season with a WAR of 1.8 or higher. (A WAR of 2.0 is considered average.)

There is undoubtedly a relationship between spending and winning.

Ownership’s willingness to spend money and incur debt from 2021 to ‘23 certainly helped Preller construct a winner.

The ongoing commitment by ownership to invest back into the club what it says is every dollar it brings in from those sizable crowds and other income streams has helped finance payrolls that have ranked in the top 10 among MLB’s 30 teams in five of the past six years.

The Padres play in a ballpark that is almost universally considered one of the finest in the major leagues for aesthetics, food offerings and layout. The gameday production is likewise among the best in MLB, and well-timed promotions and giveaways help boost attendance.

But three consecutive seasons of record-breaking attendance are largely a result of winning teams that have marketable players.

The group

The Padres brought home a trophy from Las Vegas after this week’s general managers meetings.

On Monday, assistant general manager Josh Stein and vice president of pro scouting Pete DeYoung beat a duo from the Dodgers in the championship match of what was dubbed the first-ever front office pickleball tournament.

Stein and DeYoung were not ringers. They are the two longest-tenured members of the baseball operations department. Both joined the team full-time in 2005. Stein was an intern for two years before that.

Nick Ennis, the VP of player operations, also predates Preller.

Chris Kemp, the Padres’ scouting director, essentially came along with Preller from Texas. Farm director Ryley Westman arrived a year later.

David Post and Logan White, two of the organization’s top scouts and members of Preller’s inner circle, were hired in 2014. A bevy of amateur scouts have been around for most of the past decade, as the Padres have been able to build and rebuild their minor league system well enough to use many of the better prospects as currency to acquire major league talent.

The longevity of his closest advisers is a point of pride for Preller, who is often knocked for the turnover in the manager’s chair and the team’s coaching staff.

Craig Stammen, a former Padres reliever who has spent the past two seasons working in the Padres’ player development department, was hired to take over as manager after Mike Shildt retired. Before that, Bob Melvin left for the Giants in 2023 and Jayce Tingler was let go following the ‘21 season.

While the Padres have made the postseason at least once under each of their previous three managers, Preller acknowledged the turnover as something he would like to stop.

“That’s definitely the goal, is having somebody in place that’s doing it year after year,” Preller said. “I think we’ve seen there’s a lot of benefit, throughout the organization, when you look up and … (a lot of people) have been here now for seven, eight, nine, 10, 15, 20 years. And year after year, you’re able to grow with that group and guys that know our players, know our system and just are looking to add to it every year. There’s a lot of value to that.

“So having the manager that’s also in that situation, I think there would be real value to that as well. I think Craig is going to be someone that’s going to fit in very well with the group and our players and expect him to do it for a long time.”

If there is one thing the hire of Stammen conveyed, it is that Preller is still driving the Padres’ baseball bus.

This was a hire he felt in his gut based on the familiarity he has with Stammen and the belief he has in his character and ability to motivate players and work cohesively with the rest of the baseball operations department.

“It’s 100 percent an A.J. decision,” Greupner said. “John and I rode along and helped advise A.J. and gave him our opinions on it. But ultimately, I believe your president of baseball operations, it should be their decision to make.”

Now, there is another decision to be made.

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