The last time the Baseball Winter Meetings were in San Diego, A.J. Preller walked out of his temporary home at the Marriott Gaslamp Quarter each day, made his way toward Harbor Drive and entered the Manchester Grand Hyatt, where he launched a transformation of the Padres roster.
He didn’t officially consummate any trades during those meetings, but it was there that the deal to acquire Matt Kemp from the Dodgers was agreed upon and two other monumental trades essentially germinated. The week here kicked off an offseason in which Preller engineered trades and/or signings of what ended up being four new starting position players, a frontline starting pitcher and the National League’s top closer.