I actually like what the padres did here. The dodgers are always going to be a force and the giants could get there too, both teams have tons of money and a very smart farm system.
Sure preller is "mortgaging the future" but why not, if they play it safe and "keep the pipeline going" they will eternally be playing for 3rd place, it will never get any easier.
The dodgers are still favored to win but the goal should be to play for second place the next 2 to 3 years and maybe get lucky one year and make a deep run which is more than they did any time in the last 15 years.
They probably will be bad after that again but then they can tank again and maybe have another great farm system 3 years after that.
The padres aren't a flawlessly run org but they are doing more than many other teams in similar sized markets.
I also think it is greater for the fans to have a team of stars than to have that revolving door like tampa or oakland who do the bring up prospects, keep them 3-4 years and then trade them for prospects thing. Sure they are having sustained success in many years but that approach also creates zero identification with fans even though dollar per WAR says they are right.
I'm not saying the trouble to draw fans of tampa and Oakland despite a lot of relative successes is all related to that as lot of that is the ballpark situation but really fans want identification figures. Boston had big papi all those years for example and NY had jeter and generations of kids wore their jersey.
I think the strict dollar per war approach of teams like tampa is losing that, sure their trades make sense from a value perspective when you trade one 5 war player for 4 who add up to 5.5 war and cost less but for the fans that is not great, for them 4 1.5 war guys is not the same as 1 6 war guy