NewsHoyer emerges as leader for Padres GM
Red Sox assistant paces the pack for San Diego job
By Barry M. Bloom / MLB.com
10/24/09 5:10 PM ET
Jed Hoyer is close to being named the Padres' general manager. A baseball source said that Boston's assistant GM is the leading candidate but that no formal agreement has been reached. The announcement could come as early as Monday, but as of midday Saturday, no news conference had been set. "There's nothing new to report," Jeff Moorad, the team's chief executive, told MLB.com on Saturday. "It's going to be quiet this weekend. We're ever so close to finalizing something, but we're not there yet." Hoyer would replace Kevin Towers, who was informed by Moorad two days prior to the end of the regular season that he would not be retained in 2010 to fulfill a contract that will have paid him $1.4 million. If the Hoyer signing comes to pass, it will be the second time Moorad has hired a direct underling of Red Sox GM Theo Epstein to run his baseball operations. As CEO of the D-backs, Moorad signed Josh Byrnes as GM in October 2005 to replace Joe Garagiola Jr. Under Byrnes, the D-backs won the National League West by a half-game in 2007, lost the division by two games in 2008 and, under the weight of injuries and underperformance, lost 92 games this season. Moorad left the D-backs earlier this year, and he and his group purchased 33 percent of the Padres from principal owner John Moores just prior to the start of the season. Moorad's group plans to continue buying out Moores over the next four years. As it was for Byrnes, the post would be Hoyer's first permanent GM job in Major League Baseball. He would be only the third Padres GM since Moores bought the club after the strike-torn 1994 season, following Towers and Randy Smith, who returned to the organization as director of international scouting. Hoyer, 35, has spent his entire career with the Red Sox. He started there as a baseball operations intern in 2002 and moved up to an assistant in that same office in 2003. He and Ben Cherington served briefly as co-GMs in the fall in 2005, when Epstein was working through contract issues. Hoyer was calling the shots that fall as the team acquired Josh Beckett and Mike Lowell from the Marlins in a deal that sent Hanley Ramirez and Anibal Sanchez to Florida. Hoyer interviewed for the Pirates' GM opening in 2007 and declined an interview with Seattle in 2008. He was also interviewed for the Nationals' GM job this year before the team hired acting GM Mike Rizzo. Though Hoyer's background is in quantitative analysis, he has become more schooled in the ways of Major League transactions, contracts, scouting and player development, essentially making him the hybrid candidate who can balance statistical analysis with a scouting background. "As we see it, we want every piece of information possible before making a decision," Hoyer said in a 2007 interview. "We have spent a lot of time and energy in developing our quantitative methods, and we certainly use them in making player-personnel decisions. "But we also have a lot of great scouts, and we read their reports and have lengthy conversations with all of them before making decisions. The idea that teams are either 'Moneyball' teams or 'scouting' teams is an incredible oversimplification. You need to have both of those components -- as well as medical and contractual -- to make an educated decision on a player." Moorad has said on numerous occasions that he has a gentleman's agreement with the D-backs through which he won't interview members of that organization, which took rising stars Jerry DiPoto and Peter Woodfork out of the equation. One interesting report that circulated on Tuesday from various Boston media outlets was that Towers could conceivably take a spot in the Red Sox front office, possibly as a special assistant or in the scouting department, if Hoyer is indeed hired by the Padres. Towers has said that he wants to take some time off before deciding his next move, but added that he does want to work somewhere next season, hopefully as a GM.Barry M. Bloom is a national reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.
