After being replaced as the general manager of the Diamondbacks, Kevin Towers has declined an opportunity to stay on in another capacity, the club announced today. The club has also decided not to renew the contract of assistant GM Billy Ryan.
Towers had been waiting to consider the new role after talking it over with new GM Dave Stewart. He took over the club’s baseball operations in 2010. After initially finding success, the D’backs have sputtered in each of the last two years. The seat increasingly heated up as a series of high-profile trades (and, to a lesser extent, free agent signings) backfired on the veteran executive.
Towers first hit his stride in a front office capacity with the Padres, starting out as their scouting director and ultimately taking over as the GM. A long tenure ended after the 2009 season, leading Towers to work as a special assignment scout with the Yankees for one year before heading to Arizona.
It remains to be seen what the future holds for Towers. Many have speculated that he could move back to San Diego in some kind of advisory capacity to newly-hired GM A.J. Preller, though there are no indications to date that anything is in the works.
“In another capacity” is that code for hot dog vendor?
Kevin Towers strikes me as one of the least thoughtful men in baseball. He’s also the master of getting nothing for something, He should go back to the Padres and work on building a bullpen full of pitchers that just can’t work out in other ballparks. That’s what he was good at.
He’s a scouting guru but his business and roster building abilities are lacking
Really? He sure missed on a lot of draftees while with the Padres.
I’m actually really surprised by this one. He has a good relationship with Dave Stewart. He even gave Stewart his first job. They would have made a great team. Towers would have been able to head scouting, where he is one of the best in the business and Stewart would have been great at making the business decisions, where Towers obviously lacked