Padres opt to show Towers the door

Kevin Towers, the longest tenured GM in baseball, will be let go after 14 years running the show in San Diego, Padres CEO Jeff Moorad confimed Friday night. The long rumored move will come following a second straight losing season. The Padres have improved from 63-99 in 2008 to 74-85 so far this year, but the second-half surge did Towers no good. The writing had been on the wall since the moment Moorad took control of the team earlier this season. Despite typically modest payrolls, the Padres won four division titles during Towers’ stay. However, they also finished in fourth or fifth place nine times and lost 95 games on three occasions. Towers should still be remembered rather fondly in San Diego for the Adrian Gonzalez/Chris Young fleecing of the Rangers. His trades for Phil Nevin, Ryan Klesko and Woody Williams were also big successes, though those teams at the beginning of the decade were failures anyway. His ability to put together quality bullpens, that were always very cheap outside of Trevor Hoffman, had to be one factor that gave Moores pause before he decided to let him go. But, in the end, player development problems doomed Towers. In my Restoring the Rosters series in August, I ranked the Padres 28th in talent signed. Of the 28 first- and supplemental first-round picks to come on board during Towers’ tenure, only one, Khalil Greene, has turned into a quality major leaguer. Now, it’s still too early to judge those last 10, all of whom have been drafted since 2007, and Tim Stauffer is recently showing signs of life, but that’s an abysmal track record. The Padres need some new blood, so they’ll look outside of the organization for a successor. Jerry DiPoto and Peter Woodfork, both of whom worked with Moorad in Arizona, seem like logical choices. DiPoto has been a hot name the last couple of years anyway, and he should be considered the favorite for the job,