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Heyman On Padres, Rockies, Abreu

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The latest from SI's Jon Heyman…

  • Heyman talked to Padres CEO Jeff Moorad, who is looking for a disciplined and strategic general manager rather than an intuitive exec like Kevin Towers.  Heyman says the new GM will be hired within weeks.  Boston's Jed Hoyer is in the mix, and Oakland's David Forst fits the profile.
  • The Rockies will offer new contracts to GM Dan O'Dowd and manager Jim Tracy.
  • The Angels made an offer to Bobby Abreu, who is finishing up a one-year deal that will pay him at least $6MM.  Heyman says "no progress has been reported thus far."  Abreu said in September that he wants to return.

Odds & Ends: Blue Jays, Towers, Pirates, Mets

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Here are some links to kick off Sunday morning:

  • Some Blue Jays players approached CEO and President Paul Beeston with complaints about Cito Gaston, reports Ken Fidlin of the Toronto Sun.  “They raised the issues,” said Beeston. “They were listened to. They have not been addressed at this time. I had my ears open. I kept my mouth shut. I gave them some comments and that’s all I want to say about that.”
  • Jordan Bastian of MLB.com writes that newly appointed Toronto GM Alex Anthopoulos was emotional in his introductory presser.  The article notes that the position of president and CEO will be filled soon, relieving the interim hire, Paul Beeston.  Beeston says that while the next president and CEO will have the authority to hire its own staff, he will recommend that Anthopoulos remain as GM.
  • Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports writes that Kevin Towers didn't deserve to get fired considering all the obstacles he has had to work around in San Diego.
  • Towers conducted a farewell press conference in San Diego and Craig Elsten of 619sports.net posted some key sound bytes.  Towers insisted that the organization maintained a strong focus on scouting and player development under his watch.  He also said that he has been contacted by seven or eight other teams to work immediately, but wants to take some time off before jumping into another job.  The 47-year-old made it known that he wants the opportunity to be a GM again.  Also available are team owner and CEO Jeff Moorad's post-podium comments.
  • The Pirates have talked to Andy LaRoche about possibly moving from third base to second next year to make room for Pedro Alvarez, writes Dejan Kovacevic of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.  The Pirates would like to call-up Alvarez by the middle of the 2010 season, but first he must improve his strength and conditioning.  The 22-year-old excelled after his mid-season promotion to AA, posting .333/.419/.590 with 13 HR in 60 games.
  • More from Kovacevic as he labels the Pirates' trade of Nate McLouth to the Braves to be the worst personnel move of the year.  Kovacevic says the deal hurt the players' trust in Pittsburgh management and was a poor public relations decision.
  • Bart Hubbuch of the New York Post tweets, "Jerry Manuel was in meetings all morning and said he expects an announcement tomorrow on changes and the team's offseason plans."
  • Jon Heyman reports via Twitter that Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria refused to comment on a possible manager change.  Recent reports suggest that Fredi Gonzalez could be on the way out and Bobby Valentine could be on the way in.

Odds & Ends: Padres GM, Valentine

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Here's a few links that just couldn't wait until tomorrow…

  • MLB.com's Corey Brock tweeted plenty of goodies about the Padres' search for a new GM tonight. First of all, CEO Jeff Moorad said that there are no internal candidates for the job, nor are there any candidates from the Diamondbacks organization. That would eliminate Paul DePodesta and Jerry DiPoto. Moorad also mentioned that he has already interviewed three candidates. Any guesses?
  • Secondly, and definitely not more importantly, Moorad said that the team's 2010 payroll will "begin with a 4." I'm guessing they won't be baseball's first $400MM team.
  • ESPN's Buster Olney reports that Bobby Valentine "is in communication with the Florida Marlins about a possible position with that team." Current manager Fredi Gonzalez signed a two-year extension in Spring Training, keeping him in Marlins' pinstripes until 2011, so this one is a bit of a headscratcher.

Odds & Ends: Nationals, Towers, Marlins

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A few links on the second to last day of the regular season…

  • Even though they'll finish with the worst record in baseball, Nationals GM Mike Rizzo indicated that it's not a lock the team will draft Bryce Harper first overall next year, according to MLB.com's Bill Ladson. Says Rizzo: "I haven't seen him yet. He certainly hasn't separated himself like [pitcher] Stephen Strasburg did last year."
  • CBSSports.com reports that Kevin Towers said he wasn't given a specific reason for his termination, but KT did say that he's "been around long enough to know why."
  • Juan C. Rodriguez of The Sun Sentinel says that Florida's final 2009 payroll was just under $35.6MM. Hanley Ramirez ($5.5MM) and Dan Uggla ($5.35MM) were the only Marlins to make more than $3.5MM this year.
  • Matthew Carruth at FanGraphs weighs in with his opinion of the Towers and J.P. Ricciardi firings.

Rosenthal’s Full Count Video: Indians Manager, Johnson, Padres GM, Crawford, Mauer

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Ken Rosenthal of FoxSports.com has a new Full Count video up this afternoon, so let's see what he's got for us…

  • The Indians plan to conduct 8-10 phone interviews for their managerial vacancy, then bring in 3-5 finalists by the third week of October, presumably for formal interviews. Bobby Valentine will be "on the short list," and will almost certainly get an interview. Buck Showalter will not be a candidate.
  • Cleveland is proceeding with the search as if Red Sox pitching coach John Farrell will not be a candidate, however that could change quickly if Farrell expresses interest in the job. At that point, the three parties involved would need to discuss a way around the clause in the Farrell's contract that prohibits him from seeking a managerial job elsewhere.
  • Signing Josh Johnson long-term is the Marlins' top priority this offseason. In order to get a deal done, Florida will need to "exceed significantly" the four year, $38MM deal the Royals gave Zack Greinke, who was at a similar service time level last offseason.
  • If a deal doesn't get done, Johnson will almost certainly not sign an extension next offseason, when he'd be just one year away from free agency. At that point, the Fish would need to trade him.
  • Who will replace Kevin Towers as Padres GM? Paul DePodesta, a special assistant to Towers and former GM of the Dodgers, is not interested in the job. Pat Gillick doesn't figure to be a candidate either.
  • The leading candidate might be Diamondbacks' exec Jerry DiPoto, but the Padres would need approval from the commissioner's office to get him. CEO Jeff Moorad left the D-Backs just last December, and the league frowns upon executives raiding their former teams for front office talent.
  • However, DiPoto has already interviewed for openings with the Nationals and Mariners, so it would be difficult for the D-Backs to make much of a fuss.
  • Carl Crawford is "well intentioned" when he says he wants to sign a long-term extension with Tampa Bay. The problem is that the team probably won't offer him enough to keep him from becoming a free agent at the end of 2010.
  • The bigger question is Joe Mauer, who can also hit free agency next winter. Mauer told The NY Times earlier this week that he is not interested in becoming the highest paid player in the game, even though he probably deserves to be. He is represented by Ron Shapiro, the same agent that kept Cal Ripken Jr. in Baltimore and Kirby Puckett in Minnesota. Shapiro clearly understands the value of a player staying with one team his entire career.
  • Shapiro, father of Indians GM Mark Shapiro, would be "sticking it to his son" a bit by keeping Mauer in the AL Central. That's my phrase, not Rosenthal's.

Odds & Ends: Towers, Ricciardi, Trembley

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Saturday afternoon linkage…

  • Tim Sullivan of the San Diego Union-Tribune reflects fondly on Kevin Towers' 14-year tenure with the Padres.  "Whatever you might think of his baseball decisions," Sullivan writes, "no one in the game can work a room more charismatically."
  • Mark Feinsand of the New York Daily News believes J.P. Ricciardi's biggest blunder — "and the one that most likely did him in" — was not trading Roy Halladay this summer.  Other infractions of the Ricciardi era include massive contracts tendered to Vernon Wells and B.J. Ryan, and the trading of Jayson Werth for Jason Frasor.
  • Tom Krasovic of Inside The Padres is beginning to hear names for the Padres' GM opening.  Red Sox assistant general manager Jed Hoyer is a new one.
  • Kevin Cowherd of the Baltimore Sun doesn't understand why the Orioles opted to pick up manager Dave Trembley's 2010 option.  "I don't understand," Cowherd writes, "how you stand pat with your manager after another horrible collapse that includes a 13-game losing streak and a possible 100-loss finish."

Odds & Ends: Towers, Ricciardi, Jenks, Barajas

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Some links on a surprisingly busy Saturday morning…

  • Here's a link to this morning's post containing comments from Padres CEO Jeff Moorad about the firing of Kevin Towers. It was quickly buried by the news of J.P. Ricciardi being let go, so you may have missed it.
  • FoxSports.com's Ken Rosenthal says that Towers "should be relieved to be out of an organization in which he constantly faced ownership interference, payroll reductions and other forms of nonsense."
  • Stoeten at Drunk Jays Fans provides some fan reaction to the Ricciardi move. Moral of the story: it was a move that had to be made, but what took so long?
  • MLB.com's Scott Merkin says that we could once again hear Bobby Jenks' name mentioned in trade rumors this offseason. The team has a capable replacement in Matt Thornton, and Jenks figures to get a raise on his $5.6MM salary through arbitration.
  • Rod Barajas has interest in returning to Toronto next season, and indicated that he wasn't sure if the rift between players and manager Cito Gaston would influence his decision, according to MLB.com's Jordan Bastian.

Moorad Comments On Kevin Towers Firing

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Kevin Towers, the longest-tenured general manager in baseball, was let go by the Padres last night. He was at the helm for 498 of Trevor Hoffman's saves and 740 of Tony Gwynn's hits, but the team went 1,107-1,160 under his watch. There is still one more year left on his contract, which Cot's says makes him "one of the top five or six highest-paid GMs."

Tim Sullivan of The San Diego Union Tribune spoke to team CEO Jeff Moorad about the situation, who was very complimentary of Towers, as you'd expect.

“The organization is indebted to Kevin for not only the 14 years he served as general manager, but for the fact that the club is well-positioned to go forward into the future,” Moorad told the Union-Tribune in an exclusive interview before Friday night's game at Petco Park. “I think we need to build a better baseball operations department, better skilled at the areas we're committed to going forward.

“I admire (Towers') skills very much and respect his relationships that exist around the game. But I think over the next period of time, our focus is on more of a strategic approach to drafting and development that has a chance to compete in the division year-in and year-out.”

Although he did not mention specific candidates, Moorad said his search for a replacement has not been internal and indicated that it could take weeks, rather than days. Sullivan lists Diamondbacks VP Jerry DiPoto and the "semi-retired" Pat Gillick as possible replacements.

Padres To Fire Kevin Towers

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The San Diego Padres will part ways with general manager Kevin Towers, according to Corey Brock of MLB.com (via Twitter). Brock tweets that, while no official announcement has been made yet, the Padres will let the longest-tenured GM in the majors go.

The ownership transition in San Diego, from John Moores to Jeff Moorad, likely spelled the end for Towers. ESPN.com's Rob Neyer speculated earlier today that Moorad wanted to bring in "his own guy" for the position.

Towers has been San Diego's GM since 1995, and saw the team win four division titles during the stint. The Padres made one World Series during Towers' tenure, losing to the Yankees in 1998.

It remains to be seen if Towers is the only casualty in San Diego, or if more of the staff will follow him out of town.

Odds & Ends: Padres, Jays, Giants

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A few links to start the evening….

  • Bob Nightengale of USA Today believes the Padres would be making an epic mistake if they let GM Kevin Towers go. The odds of Towers being retained look "very slim," according to Corey Brock of MLB.com (via Twitter).
  • Earlier today we discussed reports of tension in the Blue Jays' clubhouse between players and manager Cito Gaston. Jordan Bastian of MLB.com relays reaction quotes on his Twitter from those involved. Vernon Wells says it's never been this bad in Toronto in the past.
  • Keith Law of ESPN.com opines that Buster Posey's only weakness is his game-calling, which could only be fixed by gaining major-league experience with the Giants' staff. He suggests San Francisco save the money they could spend on Bengie Molina and hand the catching reins to Posey in 2010.
  • As Tom Verducci of SI.com points out, the game now has a dominant group of young pitchers such as Felix Hernandez and Clayton Kershaw.
  • Houston owner Drayton McLane tells MLB.com's Brian McTaggart that rumors of the Astros being for sale are "absolutely untrue."
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