Why Does Kevin "Teflon" Towers Continue To Get A Free Pass?
Here is a picture of San Diego Padres GM Kevin Towers explaining why the team has enough talent to make it back to the playoffs this season. In the background, manager Bud Black is thinking that Towers must be smoking crack because there are only four above average players on the entire roster.
Adrian Gonzalez, Jake Peavy, Chris Young and Heath Bell. That's it folks. Everyone else on the roster is average, below average, well past his prime or a complete stiff. Meanwhile, Towers is now the longest tenured general manager in baseball as he ineptly struggles through his fourteenth year with the team.
Outside of brief playoff appearances in 2005 (even though the final regular season record was only 82-80) and 2006, the Padres have been mediocre at best. 1998 was really the only season in which the team achieved any significant success. For the life of me, I can't understand why Towers isn't being held accountable.
Former owner John Moores often gets blamed for failing to give Towers the money he needs to build a quality team. However, how hard can it possibly be to bring in players that can excel in a cavernous ball park like Petco?
The Padres should have at least three guys in the lineup capable of stealing thirty plus bases. Instead, there is absolutely no speed on the base paths. Through twenty-five games, the team has a grand total of 11 stolen bases. Hell, Carl Crawford just stole six bases in one game last night.
Nothing seems to stick to this guy...and I just don't get it. Even when the Padres started the season on fire, I still didn't think they were capable of being anything more than a 70-win team. If Teflon Towers doesn't turn things around very soon then new Padres CEO Jeffrey Moorad will have no choice but to show him the door...
I totally agree regarding KT, and in fact, you are giving the Padres too much credit with four "above average" players. Fantasy baseball geeks know exactly how this roster stacks up. Adrian Gonzalez is a top 10 1B and Peavy is a top 10 SP. That makes them both very clearly "above average". Heath Bell wasn't even drafted in many fantasy leagues, and where he was drafted, he was a #2 closer. While he has racked up a bunch of saves in April, that does not catapult him above more experienced and reliable closers into "above average". If you want to call him an "average" closer, I can accept that. But he's not "above average" yet. And Chris Young is also not "above average". He is the Padres #2 starter, and most of baseball has a #2 starter who has had more than one good season (and Chris Young's good season was two years ago). Chris Young is above average when you compare him to all starting pitchers in MLB, but if you compare him by position (#2 starter for a team), he is defnitely below average. I wish it was different because I'm a Padres fan, but this team is completely non-competitive, even in one of the worst divisions in baseball.
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Well, I'm glad I'm not the only one! KT is one of the luckiest guys in the world. Just think if he was the GM in New York, Boston or Philly? He would have been long gone by now. It's simply inexcusable that the team doesn't have a roster that fits the ball park they play in. It wouldn't even be that expensive to bring in three or four young thoroughbreds to generate a little offense and some excitement as well.
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Maybe KT had adamantium infused into his skeleton to make him indestructable. Go ahead and sleep throuh "There Will Be Blood". Then see Wolverine.
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Hugh,
Stop by later today for two other things that I'll be doing before going to see Wolverine.
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