Mason Miller is right in the middle of the National League wild-card race as a member of the San Diego Padres, but he was reportedly almost part of the same race with a different team.

The San Diego Padres landed Mason Miller from the Athletics in a deadline blockbuster, which also included JP Sears and infield prospect Leo De Vries. But the deal wasn't the Athletics' first choice for a potential Miller trade.

When the work was finished, and five trades involving 22 players had been executed within six hours, A.J. Preller's peers called him everything from a "lunatic" to a "genius," a divergence befitting Major League Baseball's most polarizing executive.