The San Diego Padres decided to get real fun again in the last half of the season, and their rebirth augurs well for 2010. Field manager Bud Black promised improvements in the team’s overall record this year, and although 87 losses is tough to take, it sure beats the hell out of the 99 the team racked up in 2008. After the All-Star break, the Padres were 39-35; beforehand, they ran up a 36-52 tally. The good news from the season’s latter stages was tempered with the Oct. 3 firing of Kevin Towers, at 14 years’ service the longest-tenured general manager with a single team in the bigs. Towers, 47, was in charge when the Dads won four NL West titles and made it to the World Series (1998), where they were swept by the Yankees. Team CEO Jeff Moorad, whose ownership group acquired the Padres last March, said the move was about the club’s future and recasting its infrastructure accordingly. That makes sense, as new management routinely brings in its own people; and in any event, Moorad must’ve looked twice at a published report in which Towers said, “I don’t know if we need to do a lot this winter.” Well, of course the franchise needs to do a lot this winter. Even the sweep-happy Yankees, with 2009’s best record, need to do a lot this winter. After all, trades, salary discussions and physical fitness reports are what winters are for. Still, Towers’ termination seems oddly timed. If new owners are intent on hiring fresh personnel, they normally do it sooner than later, before any harmful residual effects have a chance to set in. Towers may have had a reputation as a “gunslinger,” like the reports say, but amid the late-season uptick and his own track record, it might have been prudent to wait another year before deciding on his dismissal. On-field progress like this is usually traceable to work behind the scenes, and Towers was a formidable figure in such affairs. We trust that Moorad knows what he’s doing and that Towers’ departure won’t come back to haunt him or the team. Opening day, after all, is less than a scant six months away.
