Upon seizing the franchise’s third World Series title in five years, the 2014 San Francisco Giants stood as baseball’s rock stars.

At the same time, a Padres newcomer billed as a rock star in his own right entered his first offseason atop the club’s baseball operations.

A.J. Preller, it turned out, was up to the challenge.

Compared with Giants leaders since 2015, Preller has produced the greatest hits and excited the most fans.

Yes, it took Preller a while to find his groove. Yes, the Giants underachieved in most years after their final champagne party ended. True, a World Series trophy can’t be found at 19 Tony Gwynn Drive.

Nevertheless, the Padres establishing themselves as the sharper, more entertaining franchise across the past several years stands as a critical achievement that Dodgers-obsessed Friars fans shouldn’t take for granted.

Preller himself said five Novembers ago that winning the 162-game West race against the Dodgers isn’t going to happen, barring extraordinary developments.

The only realistic path to the postseason and a World Series trophy, then, is for the Padres to beat out the league’s other non-division winners for one of three wild-card playoff spots. The Giants are one of the wealthier franchises seeking the same rewards.

I gave the Gants several mulligans as they fell off following their third World Series run. The price of success is steep.

But even with brilliant top executive Brian Sabean moving into semi-retirement, it seemed the Giants had too many resources to struggle for numerous years. Their scouts had drafted or signed several amateurs who fueled the World Series runs. Attendance exceeded 3 million fans in most years. Corporate money poured into the franchise.

When Giants ownership hired a new executive to run their baseball operations entering the 2019 season, it seemed the Padres-Giants rivalry would soon heat up in the annual wild-card pursuits.

The Padres were finally getting close to transitioning from rebuilding to contending.

The new Giants executive, Farhan Zaidi, earned high marks as an executive with the A’s and Dodgers. He was expected to step up the club’s analytics game and help the franchise pull out of a two-year stretch in which it was an aggregate 50 games below .500.

Zaidi’s efforts didn’t pan out often enough. The Giants dismissed him in late September, just as the Padres geared up for their postseason in five years.

Preller proved better than his Giants counterpart at building a productive farm system, making effective trades, obtaining stars and creating buzz in the media and at the ballpark.

Zaidi oversaw the better regular season, a 107-victory stunner in 2021 that deprived the Dodgers of their only NL West crown in these past 11 years.

The Giants notched no other winning seasons in Zaidi’s six seasons. Where the Giants lost their only postseason series under Zaidi, the Padres won three playoff sets, going as far as the 2022 League Championship Series.

Padres advantages

The Giants play in a much bigger media market. That gives them a large revenue edge over the Padres.

There are other nuances within every market, though, that can affect team-building.

In a review of his tenure Wednesday, Zaidi told the digital baseball show “Foul Territory” that San Francisco’s hitter-unfriendly ballpark conditions and the franchise’s refusal to attempt a full rebuild proved challenging.

Asked about his whiffs in landing star hitters in free agency, Zaidi promptly mentioned the ballpark.

The Padres, in contrast, had advantages in those areas.

Their ballpark doesn’t play quite as big, and many ballplayers find evenings alongside San Diego Bay more hospitable than alongside windy San Francisco Bay.

Crucially, Preller was allowed a five-year rebuild,

In that time, he traded for Ferando Tatis Jr., put various staffs into place and oversaw immense investments in the signings of teenage players from Latin America. Ownership support meant Preller had no reason to believe that his growing pains, some of which were severe, would cost him his job.

The simpatico between Preller and Padres Chairman Peter Seidler was real. Just two years into Preller’s run, Seidler told the Union-Tribune Preller probably could stay in his job as long as he wanted.

Seidler approved player payrolls that finished sixth, seventh, fifth and third out of Major League Baseball’s 30 teams between 2020 and 2023.

Batter up

Preller vs. Zaidi went to the Padres.

Now it’s Preller vs. Buster Posey.

The former Giants star catcher, beloved throughout MLB, succeeded Zaidi and already has taken a big swing in signing former Brewers shortstop Willy Adames to a seven-year, $182-million contract.

Posey, like Preller, has shown he’s willing to take chances and risk intense criticism from media and fans.

Both Posey and Preller will try to sell Japanese ace pitcher Roki Sasaki on what their franchise has to offer. Sasaki has said he admires Padres pitcher Yu Darvish, whom Preller acquired in a trade and then signed to a contract extension through 2028.

Running a baseball club is a 365-day job, one that breaks some executives. If Posey’s baseball wisdom and rare people skills translate into team-building, though, the Giants are unlikely to stagger along as much as they have since 2015. After all, the Giants pretty much have the Bay Area baseball market to themselves now that the A’s have moved to Sacramento on their way to Las Vegas.

Forecast: Starting in 2025, it’ll be tougher for the Padres to ace out the Giants for a wild-card spot.