The Arizona Diamondbacks are looking for a new general manager after informing Kevin Towers that he’s been removed from the role. The Diamondbacks visit Dodger Stadium for a three-game series beginning today.
Towers hasn’t been fired per se, as was initially reported. Rather, the Diamondbacks said that Towers has been offered another position within the organization, and is considering the opportunity. In a prepared statement, Diamondbacks Chief Baseball Officer Tony La Russa says that Towers “would like to see who the general manager is before making his own decision.”
The Diamondbacks and Dodgers never completed a trade during Towers’ tenure in Arizona, which began in September 2010. The Diamondbacks have posted a 320-317 record since.
Last October, when asked about the Dodgers’ celebration in the Diamondbacks’ pool after a September 2013 game, Towers told a Phoenix radio station that “if I would have had a carton of baseballs I would have fired them into the dugout from where I was sitting behind home plate.”
It sounds like the Dodgers won’t have to worry about that anymore. (Phew.)
That brings the total of general manager changes in the National League West this year to two. The San Diego Padres replaced Josh Byrnes with A.J. Preller earlier this season. Byrnes never made a trade with the Dodgers, either, which isn’t unusual considering it happens once every 15 years on average.