The Diamondbacks went from having the third worst record in baseball last year to the third best record in the NL this year thanks to the moves made by new GM Kevin Towers. Because of that improvement, CEO Derrick Hall told Nick Piecoro of The Arizona Republic that he'll look into exercising the first two-year club option (for 2013 and 2014) in Towers' contract this offseason. Towers also has another two-year club option for 2015 and 2016.
When Arizona hired Towers last offseason, they only gave him a two-year contract rather than the four-year deal most GMs receive. "I didn't want to put the organization in a position where we had another long-term deal in case it didn't work out the way we hoped it would," said Hall, referring to previous GM Josh Byrnes. Byrnes had five years left on his contract when he was fired last summer.
Towers told Piecoro that he is very happy with his current situation, and that he's not too concerned about his contract. "To me, I'm at a point in my career where I don't worry about contracts or lengths of contracts as long as the people that I work for trust the job that I'm doing and like me being here," he said. "This is where I want to be. I want to be here, not only because I like the working environment, but I like the ownership, I like the CEO and my boss, and I like where we're headed."
Our Transaction Tracker shows all of the moves Towers has made with the Diamondbacks. Known for his bullpen-building skills, Towers turned a historically bad relief corps (5.74 ERA in 2010) into a strength (3.85 ERA in 2011) by signing J.J. Putz, trading for David Hernandez and Brad Ziegler, and selecting Joe Paterson in the Rule 5 Draft. He also signed Stephen Drew to a two-year contract that bought out his remaining years of arbitration-eligibility.
Well obviously
goes to show that all 30 MLB teams could turn it around with the right approach. A one year turn around is possible for the perennial basement dwellers. The DBacks were proactive when they saw the ship sinking, but teams with historic lineage let their name go rotten for up to 2 decades.
How does it show that? Arizona had a historically bad bullpen last season, now they have one of the best. Their issue was glaring and obvious.
Yes, but didn’t they strike 8 times a game last year? It’s not like the only issue was the bullpen.
Lets say you are running the Pirates. You see no glaring and obvious problems, however, you lose every year. Maybe the guy that takes your job in the future notices the problems that you didn’t, and he turns the organization around (3rd from the bottom to 3rd from the top). For the sake of this example, your name is not Rabbitov, it is Byrnes.
Lol
From what I heard on the radio, it seems Towers is reaping the benefits of the maneuvers and decisions Byrnes made in years past. It wasn’t going to happen overnight. Now that everything is starting to go right, there’s Towers receiving all the praise and admiration. I’m the furthest thing from a D’back fan, so I’ll claim ignorance on this matter……I’m just going on what was discussed on sports talk radio.
No he isnt
Josh Byrnes is an IDIOT!! He can screw around with the Cubs in the offseason when he will be the GM there, for all I care. Towers should’ve been hired back in 2005 when he first interviewed. But we are glad he have him now.
GO D’BACKS
in other words, they hired the right guy