Arizona Diamondbacks oust GM Kevin Towers

If you’ve been paying attention at all to the Diamondbacks in 2014, you knew that general manager Kevin Towers wasn’t going to be that in Arizona much longer. Even before Tony La Russa’s retirement turned out to apply only to on-field work, with the Hall of Famer becoming the Chief Baseball Officer for the D’backs in May, the Diamondbacks were awful and had not been relevant since 2011, in Towers’ first full season as general manager. His constant tinkering hadn’t worked, much as it never brought glory to Towers’ previous general managing for the Padres, and it was only a matter of time before he was booted in favor of a handpicked, La Russian replacement.

The inevitable arrived Friday morning, with Nick Piecoro reporting that Towers is out as general manager, but has been offered a position elsewhere in the organization. It is, for all intents and purposes, a firing. Towers can likely latch on elsewhere without working for people who just told him he wasn’t good enough for the job he had: there have been rumors of him joining the Padres in some kind of executive capacity since June, months before he was even ousted in Phoenix, so the pressure on him to accept a job under La Russa is likely minimal. That’s all educated guesswork, though: what we do know for sure is that it was time for Towers to be removed from power in Arizona.