Baseball’s 162-game season is so unrelenting, it can slam some big leaguers into a fatigue wall.

I saw it up close as a Padres beat writer. The mental grind can cook some ballplayers. Other players’ bodies break down. It’s very much a Darwinian world.

Habits, too, can make or break players.

Rickey Henderson, during his Padres days, said one lifestyle commitment enabled his baseball longevity.

“Sleep,” said baseball’s best leadoff man, who reported a disciplined commitment to plenty of zzzzs.

Ample sleep isn’t a frequent option, though, within the annual summer attrition-and-aptitude test for the folks in many baseball front offices.

Major League Baseball’s summer trade market requires these team-builders to up their games. The Aug. 1 trade deadline hounds these baseball seamheads to sustain concentration over intense stretches.

“I think everybody in baseball gets less sleep during those times,” Padres president of baseball operations A.J. Preller said. “The funny part is, you know which groups with the other teams are the late-night groups and which groups are the early risers.

“It’s kind of a round-the-clock situation for all of us.”

For sure, it’s a grind.

But baseball work, Preller interjected, is fun work.

“It’s that time of year where you’ve definitely got to be on — and all of baseball’s like that,” said Preller, the Padres’ general manager since August 2014. “The beauty of that is, it’s baseball. It’s fun to be talking about baseball. At that time, all of baseball’s kind of wired — fans and baseball people.”

Preller’s high trade rate and knack for blockbuster deals have made him the most prominent face of MLB’s summer trade market.

Baseball’s media partners love that he’s not a scaredy-cat GM.

Preller said it’s a team effort. He gave high marks to his crew of evaluators and research and development analysts, among many other Padres contributors.

But his own abilities matter, too.

Preller, 48, can still work extra-long stretches on low sleep without losing his fastball, said former Padres control owner Ron Fowler, one of the folks who hired the former Texas Rangers scouting executive into his current job 11 years ago.

A closing kick worthy of Usain Bolt was required of Preller and staffers this summer.

Nearing the finish line, they made five trades involving 22 players.

Preller called it a very busy stretch, even by his team’s track record for high-volume trading.

When it ended, Preller, speaking with reporters, seemed more excited than fatigued.

If he has a health hack, it’s pickup basketball.

Typically, he arises in the morning dark to play — “missing shots and making turnovers,” he quipped — so he can get a jump on his day. It’s bliss for him.

“Most days, we’re running at 6 a.m.,” said Preller, who’s rated a pretty good point guard by opponents

Hoops at dawn, he admitted, didn’t come naturally to him. “You’re thinking, ‘This is not human, you shouldn’t be running at that time,’” he said.

In time, he adapted.

“You can get used to anything, I feel like,” he said.

Leading up to the trade deadline, Preller and team worked out of an auditorium at Petco Park.

Coffee was available 24/7, said Preller, who drank beverages without caffeine. While perhaps no one on Preller’s team topped the strong-coffee intake per day of Detroit Lions coach Dan Campbell — two 20-ounce cups with two shots of espresso in each — a Padres scout did reprise consumption habits that are the stuff of Padres lore.

He is Keith Boeck.

Behold his trade-market fuel: energy drinks and licorice, in copious amounts.

“Red Bulls and Twizzlers are basically his diet,” said Preller, his voice tinged with an awe reserved for exciting hitters and pitchers. “He sits in that room. This is kind of his Super Bowl. We sit in amazement and look at his diet at that time of year — and make sure we do the opposite.”

Unwittingly, Preller provided an explainer to Boeck’s dietary madness.

“His dad was a sportswriter,” he said.

Boeck’s specialty is scouting players on other MLB teams for potential acquisition. Boeck championed Jake Cronenworth before Preller got the second baseman from the Tampa Bay Rays six years ago.

Clearly, professional scouting played a large role in Preller’s recent moves that imported seven players to the current big-league club.

Preller traded for two Oaklands A’s pitchers in closer Mason Miller and J.P. Sears, two regulars from the Baltimore Orioles in outfielder Ramon Laureano and first baseman/DH Ryan O’Hearn, Kansas City Royals catcher Freddy Fermin, Milwaukee Brewers pitcher Nelson Cortes and Toronto Blue Jays infielder Will Wagner, who has appeared in 40 big-league games this year and was sent to the Padres’ Triple-A club in El Paso.

Negotiating financial terms, too, Preller added only $1.5 million to the big-league payroll.

Though the longer-term impact on the Padres is much tougher to forecast, the trades seem to have markedly improved the club’s ability to challenge for a first World Series title. Fermin and Laureano already have become lineup regulars. Miller’s 101-mph average fastball has strengthened what already was MLB’s best bullpen.

“Hopefully,” said Preller, “we can bring some joy to San Diego.”

If nothing else, we’ll see if Red Bull and Twizzlers are the stuff of champions.

Originally Published: August 11, 2025 at 5:43 PM PDT