Morosi thinks that the addition of Fermin is a difference maker, and it's his favorite deal that A.J. Preller made at the deadline. It's not the Mason Miller blockbuster, which brought one of the most electric closers to San Diego. It's the trade for Fermin.

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.