LIer Preller helped Rangers join elite

ARLINGTON, Texas

If you want to understand A.J. Preller's success, here's a good starting point:

The Long Island native's formative baseball rooting years were the mid-to-late 1980s. And he rooted for . . . the Yankees, during the rare period when the Mets owned the market.

"I would make trades in my head, try to figure out how the Yankees could get better," said Preller, a graduate of Whitman High School in Huntington Station.

Nowadays, as the Rangers' senior director of player personnel, Preller has contributed significantly to the success of the two-time American League champions. He's here in large part because, just as he supported the Ed Whitson-era Yankees, he often opted for the more difficult road.

A 1999 graduate of Cornell, Preller pursued a life in baseball at a time before it was commonplace for non-playing Ivy League types to hold positions of power. And when he climbed the ladder, going from Major League Baseball's central office (2000-01) to the Dodgers (2002-04) to the Rangers (since 2005), he tried to make his name as a Latin America scout even though he didn't speak Spanish.

"I thought to myself, if I'm going to be here all of the time and you can't speak the language, you have no chance,' " Preller said. "So I took a two-week Berlitz course, one-on-one with the instructor, just to get a base. And then I religiously listened to the audiotapes they give you."

At 34, Preller is a rising star in the baseball industry, working alongside Cornell classmate and good friend Jon Daniels, the Rangers' general manager. Daniels, a Queens native, rooted for the Mets back in the day.

"His impact on the organization, top to bottom, has been huge," Daniels said. "There are a number of players on the big- league team we wouldn't have without him."

Most prominently, Preller noticed a Dominican outfielder on the Athletics' Rookie League team in 2004, projected him as a pitcher and urged the Rangers to select him in the minor-league phase of the 2005 Rule 5 draft -- even though the player was involved in a human-trafficking ring and faced visa issues.

In 2010, Alexi Ogando finally resolved his legal matters and fully joined the Rangers, and he pitched in the 2011 All-Star Game.

Preller also helped acquire shortstop Elvis Andrus and closer Neftali Feliz in the Mark Teixeira trade with Atlanta, as Preller knew both from his Latin American travels. He also can take credit for convincing Daniels -- who tried the business world after graduating Cornell -- to give baseball a shot.

When Daniels succeeded John Hart as the Rangers' GM in October 2005, with Preller having joined the organization the previous season, the two friends spoke and agreed, as Preller put it: "Well, we're either going to be very humbled or else we'll have a chance to build something special."

Now it's just a matter of whether Preller gets a chance to be a GM. "Our challenge is to create an environment that's so good that he doesn't want to leave," Daniels said. "But he certainly deserves to be talked about in those discussions."

Said Preller: "It would have to be pretty special for me to go somewhere else."

But then again, we know he enjoys a challenge.