Towers Fired
October 3rd, 2009 | Published in Daniel Gettinger, Padres, baseball, rants | 6 Comments
by Daniel Gettinger
I wish I had more time to fully comment on the Padres’ decision to fire Kevin Towers, but here is the short (edit: actually, it turned into the medium) version:
I like Towers, and feel he has always done a pretty decent job considering the fairly low budgets. I feel 2009 was actually a really good year for him and the baseball operations department. The Peavy trade was magical, they swiped Everth Cabrera from the Rockies, and they found a few bargain bin contributors such as Kevin Correia that were just good enough to keep a team with a miniscule payroll from losing 90 games.
That said, I am not surprised Jeff Moorad wants to pick his own general manager. He has his own vision for what a G.M. should look like. Moorad and his partners paid a lot of money to purchase the club, and they certainly have the right to have their own guy run the baseball operations side of things.
My biggest concern is losing some of the great non-G.M talent the Padres have had on payroll the past few years. Will Paul DePodesta stick around if he is not chosen as general manager? How about some of the other quantitative analysts such as Chris Long? Like the new owner, a new G.M. will likely want to change some of the existing processes, and may prefer to have his own guys in some of these roles. Even though I have no way of knowing what they actually are, I currently trust the Padres analytical processes, but a completely new baseball ops. department will have to win that trust back from scratch. Lets just say I probably won’t be “blindly supporting” their draft picks or other moves anymore.
October 5th, 2009 at 3:51 pm (#)
I head the Twins were already showing some interest in KT. I think he’d be a great fit there. I don’t think anyone lays any of the blame for the Padres losing the past two season on KT.
October 5th, 2009 at 4:17 pm (#)
KT had a medium sized payroll for his other 13 years and he didnt go a great job. He had a couple of good trades, but his drafting was among the worst in baseball. Moorad wants someone who can draft well because drafting/player development is the key to competing (Twins). Its not sustainable to rely on favorable trades every year to build a team.
October 5th, 2009 at 4:20 pm (#)
nicely written. I’m concerned also about the personnel changes in the FO. I hope the Padres will retain most of the talented evaluators and analysts. Nabbing Cabrera in Rule V draft and the talents in the last draft didn’t just happen by itself.
Good luck to KT and thanks for all he’s done as he’s done pretty well in the circumstances he was operating.
October 5th, 2009 at 4:31 pm (#)
Kevin-I don’t disagree that drafting and player development is absolutely crucial to the success of the Padres, but just because Towers’ strongest trait may not be analytical analysis of draft eligible players does not mean he could not be an effective G.M. for the club. The team could hire other people (like DePodesta) whose strengths do lie in that area to pretty much run that side of things. I feel the process the Padres have put in place in recent years is starting to reap some rewards, and is not entirely broken. Furthermore, while you might be correct that some of the big “rip-off” trades are flukes, there is actually no evidence that you are correct and that those trades are unsustainable. There are many ways to improve a team, trades are one of them, and K.T. seems to have a knack for making good trades.
That said, I do not fault Moorad for firing Towers. Its Moorad’s club and he needs to be comfortable with the guy running the baseball ops. side of things.
October 6th, 2009 at 9:56 am (#)
It’s not hard to see where Moorad is coming from here, nor is it underhanded or nefarious. The Padres had two good months this season, and Towers decided that they didn’t need to make many changes in order to possibly contend next year. Any interview or evaluation doesn’t need to proceed much beyond that.
There’s hardly any chance that the Padres as currently constructed would compete next year, not without a lot of other dominoes falling. IF the Dodgers had major problems, IF the Rockies had major problems, IF the Giants did nothing to address their offense (Posey addresses some of that by himself), IF Arizona again played well under their Pythagorean record, and IF several Padres either made major steps forward or continued to perform well across many more games, then we’d have a very small chance. You can see how Moorad might not have that much confidence in a GM who gets too wrapped up in a couple of good months and some fluky performances.
The Padres basically tried Daniel’s hypothetical approach (Comment 4) under Alderson. They layered personnel around Towers in order to shore up his weaknesses. That’s not necessarily the wrong approach, but it can be unwieldy and expensive.
October 6th, 2009 at 12:47 pm (#)
Getting Adrian Gonzalez and Chris Young for Aki Otsuka was a legendary trade. For that alone I have to give him a pass. The one trade KT made that pissed me off (at the time) was Josh Barfield for Kouzmanoff. But, in hindsight, that trade was very favorable for us as well.