San Diego Padres: 4 worst moves by A.J. Preller since 2014

San Diego Padres: 4 worst moves by A.J. Preller since 2014

2. Sending Max Fried to the Atlanta Braves for one season of Justin Upton in 2015

As we said earlier, swinging a lot means you'll miss plenty, too. And A.J. Preller didn't hit too many times in his first attempt at building the Padres into a contender heading into the 2015 season.

In addition to the Trea Turner misfire, the Padres also traded a package of prospects, not the least of which being left-hander Max Fried, to the Atlanta Braves for a one-year rental of outfielder Justin Upton.

The good news for Preller is that Upton did produce an All-Star season for San Diego in 2015, so this trade wasn't a complete wash. However, the Padres failed to re-sign the veteran outfielder after the season, which leads us to Max Fried.

Since debuting for Atlanta, Fried has anchored the Braves' rotation, quickly becoming the team's ace. In 2022, Fried even finished second in NL Cy Young voting.

In the years since trading the talented southpaw away, the Padres have plugged and played multiple starting rotation options, eventually going all-in to land veterans Yu Darvish, Joe Musgrove and Blake Snell. But none of them have had quite the kind of success that Fried has found with the Braves, especially of late.