It may surprise you, but AJ Preller has managed the San Diego Padres longer than Andrew Friedman has managed the Dodgers.

Not much. The Padres hired Preller in August 2014, the Dodgers brought in Friedman two months later, and the Dodgers have dominated the National League West ever since.

For the Dodgers: eight division championships, three NL championships, one World Series championship.

For the Padres: zero, zero and zero.

The three-game showdown series that begins Tuesday at Dodger Stadium could be a cause for mutual celebration. The Padres could clinch a wild-card playoff spot during the series and the Dodgers could clinch another division title. If the Padres win the series, they would extend the division battle into the final weekend of the season.

The year the Padres hired Preller, they were 17 games out of first place, and with the exception of the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, they have not come any closer since.

After the Padres’ high-budget flop last year, all eyes were on Preller, and not without reason: Among three majority owners, five managers and three interim managers, Preller has been the constant over the past decade.

In the Padres’ first season since the death of popular owner Peter Seidler, the payroll was cut by a third. The Padres lost their three best players last season: Cy Young winner Blake Snell and their only 2023 All-Stars, outfielder Juan Soto and closer Josh Hader.

It would be an insult to the players on a talented roster to say that Preller had a successful rebuild. Manny Machado was still there, as were Fernando Tatis Jr., Yu Darvish, Joe Musgrove, Xander Bogaerts, Jake Cronenworth and Ha-Seong Kim.

And it would be silly to say the Padres expected an All-Star season from Jurickson Profar, who was signed during spring training because, well, someone had to play left field. The Padres ultimately expected big things from center fielder Jackson Merrill, but he began last season in Class A, began this season as a 20-year-old major leaguer and could finish the season as the NL Rookie of the Year.

But it’s fair to say that Preller played a big part in the Padres winning 90 games for the first time since 2010. The Padres have a .702 record since the All-Star break (40-17, the best record in the major leagues).

In March, he traded starting pitcher Dylan Cease. In May, he traded infielder and two-time batting champion Luis Arraez. In July, he secured star relief pitchers Jason Adam and Tanner Scott and experienced starter Martin Perez in his deadline trades.

In these five trades, Preller traded away 15 minor league players. In the reliever trades, he traded away six of his top 12 players.

The skeptical fan might say, “Of course Preller did that because he wanted to save his job.” The compassionate fan might say, “Of course Preller did that because that’s what he always does. He traded Trea Turner and Max Fried as young players.”

But what Preller actually did is exactly what more of his peers should be doing and what more owners should be asking of their baseball manager. No fan paying ever-increasing ticket prices wants to hear about a five-year plan. In an era when 40% of teams make the playoffs, is it too much to ask for a team trying to win?

If you’re an owner, don’t hire someone who will seduce you with jargon like financial flexibility, hoard minor league players, and mislead you by making you believe that “prospect” is synonymous with “minor league player.” Hire someone who can distinguish prospects from the rest of the minor league players, who can learn from mistakes instead of avoiding risks, and who can hire talented scouts and coaches to fill out a farm system.

In 2018, halfway between now and when the Guggenheim owners were pouring money and intelligence into the Dodgers, the Dodgers’ top five prospects were pitchers Walker Buehler and Mitch White, catcher Keibert Ruiz, and outfielders Yusniel Diaz and Alex Verdugo.

The Dodgers recognized Buehler as the player they wanted to keep and traded the other four, getting Mookie Betts, Machado, Turner and Max Scherzer.

Oh, and don’t fall for the “we’re buyers” or “we’re sellers” binary. The best teams do both, all the time. When Preller traded Soto, he got Michael King, a reliever from the New York Yankees who has become the Padres’ most effective starter this season, measured by ERA+.

King (12-9, 3.04 ERA) starts on Tuesday against the Dodgers, followed by Cease on Wednesday and Musgrove on Thursday.

The trick is that while you don’t want someone who is afraid to take action, you also don’t want someone who, as John Wooden would have said, confuses action with achievement. In baseball, October is all about winning.

Baseball is a business, too, and customer satisfaction is a key measure of any company’s success. The Padres set an attendance record last year despite failing on the field, but many fans believed the Padres set another attendance record this year, as they sold 3.3 million tickets and sold out two-thirds of their home games.

I spoke to Preller recently, but he didn’t want to say too much. After all, the Padres haven’t won anything yet.

The city of San Diego is waiting for its first championship in a major sport. The Padres, the team that did not leave San Diego for Los Angeles, remain hopeful.

“Peter Seidler always said, ‘The baseball gods have to be on your side if you want to win the World Series,'” Preller told me. “But we were in the playoffs in 2020, we were in the playoffs in 2022, and we hope to do it again this year.

“We’ve tried to build an organization where every year at the beginning of the season a fan can say, ‘If all goes well and the baseball gods are on our side, we can win the World Series this year.’ We feel like we have that kind of team this year.”