A lot of interesting tidbits in this article. It’s clear Towers did not like DePodesta.
Long-term, Towers does not want to walk into a situation where he’s perceived as a threat to the guy in charge. (See Mets, New York.) He is sensitive to that stuff — to appearances and relationships and comfort levels — and he is still smarting from a series of protocol issues preceding (and possibly contributing to) his unemployment.
Though Towers said he “fully enjoyed every bit” of his 25 years with the Padres, the last 14 years as GM, he says he was blindsided by Sandy Alderson’s hiring of Paul DePodesta as a special assistant who reported directly to the CEO.
That hiring, which Towers says he learned of as an already done deal, was designed in part to add structure and systematic analysis to a baseball operation that had been plagued by drafting and development problems, notably 2004’s disastrous No. 1 overall selection, Matt Bush.
Because DePodesta had previously been GM of the Dodgers, many in the industry assumed he had been brought in to push Towers out.
“If (DePodesta) were me, I would have said, ‘Sandy, can we go have lunch, you and I and KT? I want to make sure he’s comfortable.’?” Towers said. “You know how far that would have gone?”
Though colleagues say DePodesta went out of his way to show Towers he was not after his job — his responsibilities have gradually shifted more toward the business end of the operation — the stylistic differences between the two men were stark.
The affable Towers, whom Moorad has characterized as a “gunslinger,” was long known among his staff as SOYP, an affectionate acronym for “Seat-Of-Your-Pants.”
DePodesta, a more analytical and solitary figure, communicated so often by e-mail that Towers complained that he didn’t type fast enough to keep up his end of the correspondence. And though DePodesta’s analysis was largely responsible for identifying the hidden value in future closer Heath Bell, front office colleagues say Towers eventually grew to distrust him, and that the strain in their relationship became more pronounced after Moorad replaced Alderson.
...
Like every seasoned baseball executive, Towers understands that a general manager’s job is temporary and tenuous, and that new ownership typically means a new management team. Though Moorad redrew the Padres’ organizational chart to have DePodesta report to Towers, and authorized Towers to negotiate a contract extension with manager Bud Black, the GM grew uneasy about his future as he sensed club President Tom Garfinkel bonding with DePodesta.
“When I got let go, Moorad said he wanted a department head,” Towers said. “They hired Jed (Hoyer), and he had never run a department. He’s been in Theo’s shadow (with the Red Sox) for about five years. Wherever Theo went, he went. He wasn’t managing people or overseeing the draft. I don’t think he has a very extensive network.”
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1. DarrenAnd who in the world is every going to hire this guy if he doesn't ever learn how to shut his mouth?
Funny, DePo, I'm not sure he feels the same way...
The Mets
Not if you're GM of the Twins. They've never fired one on their history (seriously). Of course, Bill Smith's first two years demonstrate that they may want to eventually reconsider that policy.
So hire someone who can take dictation and type.
There is a significant body of evidence that suggests that DePodesta may be lacking in the people skills one normally needs to have a rather have level position in an organization. Although it occurs to me that that may explain part of the reason for the impassioned defenses he generates...he is a hero for socially-awkward, interpersonal-communication challenged geeks everywhere, and those similarly-challenged folks who consider people skills unnecessary or overrated in this age of computers and email end up rallying around him.
If your staff describes you as operating by the seat of your pants, one suspects you might not be doing everything possible to bring in all possible information from everyone under your command.
As opposed to, for example, this sort of masterful interpersonal communication.
WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?!?
I'll drop you an email and explain it.
Well, look. I already told you: I deal with the god damn customers so the engineers don't have to. I have people skills; I am good at dealing with people. Can't you understand that?
Jed was pretty much my manager when I was there. Now granted, I can only loosely be described as a person, but I'm sure there were others who he kept tabs on.
This is cute, but you don't have any more insight than anyone else. DePo did fine in Cleveland, he did fine in Oakland, he was in a toxic situation in LA that may have had as much to do with McCourt being a douche than anything else and the problems in San Diego seem to be more the fault of Alderson than DePo. Maybe DePo is some kind of robotic nonPerson unable to communicate the simplest of pleasantries to his fellow carbon-based life forms, but I sure don't see a significant body of evidence that this is true. He sure seems to be employed a lot for a guy who some want to think is socially retarded.
I didn't claim that I did. I'm going only off of what is out there in the public domain.
Nice job with the strawman about the "robotic nonPerson" rant, by the way, and the "socially retarded" comment. Neither has anything to do with what I said, but it is an effective way to attempt to mischaracterize what I said (and the DePodesta detractors in general) as portraying DePodesta as a wholly unrealistic cartoon.
I don't have any issue with DePodesta. I do think some of the DePodesta fanboys, though, seem to react to any sort of suggestion that DePodesta may not have some of the "softer" talents that are necessary to succeed in a large organization, particularly when you have to manage people, in a way that indicates that they either don't understand what all is necessary to be a manager of people, or that they have disdain and contempt for what corporate America (which would include the 30 MLB teams) requires from people in this regard.
The hell does this mean.
Seconded to a degree. Depo obviously is a very smart guy but, from what's known about him, he does seem to personify the stereotype of the guy in Mom's basement better than anybody else I know.
Hell if I know. As often happens here, I think we're talking about someone's topical bugaboo more than we're talking about Paul DePodesta.
seems pretty straight forward based on the fact that Depo lost a job with an organization based on his lack of interpersonal skill (keep in mind that the Dodgers hired him and believed in his intelligence and had every reason to want him to be successful) and now this, and it's possible that he doesn't possess the best social skills that would make him qualified to be a good g.m. I don't think that makes him a bad guy.
Oh, the irony.
Except Towers is the one with the issue about communication. Towers was the GM, Towers was the boss, he's the one that should have went to DePo and said "I need you to do this and this so we can work better." To me, its Towers who help sustained the communication problem because if he really wanted face to face time with DePodesta he should have mentioned it to him.
Can't hold a candle to Cardinals senior scout Chuck Fick
Right. And the way he was portrayed in Moneyball (understanding that Michael Lewis was trying to write an entertaining book, not do a deadly-accurate character study) certainly supporst that view.
Meanwhile, criticism -- real or perceived -- of DePo seems to inevitably result in a feeding frenzy amongst a group of people that, personally, I think over-identify with him. It is like every Nick Burns out there who is a baseball fan has latched onto DePodesta as their cause celebre.
Nope. Towers was the GM, but, as it pertains to DePodesta, Alderson was the boss. DePodesta reported to Alderson, not Towers. And that, it sounds like, was Towers' issue...that someone who normally would be brought in to report to Towers would instead installed outside of the normal chain of command.
Maybe it is just a result of being a Rangers fan and seeing similar issues in the Rangers' front office for much of Tom Hicks' tenure as owner, but I can understand why chain of command issues and the g.m. feeling he's being circumvented would cause problems. See also Ned Colletti and Logan White in L.A.
and now this what? And now this complaint from a fired employee that DePo didn't ask him out for lunch? DePo wasn't the one who was fired you know, he didn't lose this job due to "his lack of interpersonal skill."
DePo's job was to report directly to Alderson. DePo's job was (apparently) to provide more objective analysis for decisions. He seems to have done just that. Moreover, according to the article, DePo did try to make it clear to Towers that he wasn't out for his job.
Towers' position is also understandable, at least from a human nature standpoint. He'd been GM for 14 years -- that's a hell of a run -- and understandably felt he deserved to be shown more respect (by Alderson and/or DePo) ... or, if Alderson didn't have that level of professional respect for him, to get on with it and fire him. But really, if Towers should be peeved at anybody, it's pretty clearly Alderson he should be peeved at.
Anyway, Towers was a good GM over his 14 years, he won't have any problem finding a job. He may never get a GM job again but there aren't many who ever get to sit in the GM chair for 14 years in their entire career anyway. But he'll be a special assistant to the GM or head of scouting or VP of personnel or some such role in an organization assuming he wants it.
Actors and other performers are often actually quite shy and introverted in real life. They often seek out the "stage persona" to be able to behave in ways they couldn't or wouldn't in real life.
do you honestly think the lunch thing is the whole story? Towers has a reputation as being a very likeable and respected person. He's been a mentor and close friend to a few young general managers--most prominently Brian Cashman and Theo Epstein. So it's not as if he's some close-minded old fogey who dislikes the new brand of ivy league dorks invading the front offices. Obviously, there was something about Depo's way of interacting with him that bugged him. I guess this could all be bitterness on his part, but this is not the first time Depodesto has been viewed as lacking social graces and people skills. Again, this doesn't make him a bad guy, but it does explain maybe why he lost his job with the Dodgers and hasn't found a new GM job elsewhere.
Who portrays him in that way?
Not in the last year with Moorad as the owner, and Alderson fired. It said in the article that's when Towers started to resent DePodesta's close relationship with other execs of the Padres.
Really, Towers just comes off as insecure. Was he? I don't know, but its clear that the issues Towers had with DePo went beyond his issues with Alderson, and in that last year he had a chance to repair it if he chose to, and I am guessing he didn't.
The point of the interview was apparently to make it clear that he wants something like that. The tangent, which naturally took over this thread, is that he doesn't want to be what Paul DePodesta was in San Diego. The further implication in the article was that he has/had the opportunity to take a DePo-like role in Boston reporting to Lucchino, but he's not interested.
Except there is little evidence this is true.
Towers is the guy trashing DePo publicly. Towers is the guy trashing Hoyer for not managing a department before, which is immaterial to the question of whether he has the skills for it.
DePo is the guy who says he values his time with Towers and learned from him. DePo is the guy who went out of his way to show Towers he wasn't after his job.
Towers was the guy who felt the need for a lunch with DePo, but DIDNT EVEN ASK HIM FOR ONE, and is instead miffed that DePo didn't sense Tower's unspoken need for a lunch.
The meme that DePo lacks communications skills is just an old saw of questionable accuracy. He did a bang up job managing the Dodgers, and his lack of communication skills didn't prevent him from recruiting the right (Kent, Drew) free agents. But he had to deal with a whiny manager, cutting loose the team MVP after a career season, and psychopathic local sports columnists who overvalued both. It certainly might be true he mis-handled the media (he didn't spend lots of time educating them, which likely would have failed anyways), and didn't realize how it would impact his relationship with the owners.
But he was working for a clueless douche, and he might have decided that rather than compromise and be political and fail, better to let the chips fall where they may, even if it risked getting canned. Any good GM has to have a good relationship with the owner, because no GM has absolute authority, and the owner has to believe in the GM's abilities and strategy. The Padres appear to have made an excellent hire in Hoyer, but he still reports to Moorad, who torpedoed the Diamondbacks by signing Eric Byrnes over the desires of his baseball staff, and has a history of forcing his own bad free agent signings and trades down his GM's throat.
I think there's a segment of the workforce that would agree. I also think there is a good portion of folks who work in a professional environment who would disagree, and who view doing everything via email (and sending off a ton of emails anyway) as being sterile and done to avoid actual face-to-face dealings.
Anyway, just a shot in the dark.
How did the guy lacking in interpersonal skills manage to build these close relationships with other execs of the Padres?
Is it clear the Towers doesn't care for DePo? Sure, that's a reasonable conclusion from these statements. But Towers is the only one expressing dissatisfaction with DePo. Others say DePo went out of his way to calm Towers' anxiety. It obviously didn't work but the only way to conclude that's due to DePo's lack of people skills is by pre-judging DePo as lacking people skills.
If we're going to speculate, how about the simplest scenario. Towers was on thin ice and knew it. Towers understandably thought DePo was being brought in as a rival for his position and resented it. This feeling was reinforced by DePo reporting direct to Alderson. This inevitably led to tension between Towers and Depo -- which was Alderson's responsibility to sort out.
Based on the meager bits in this article, I can only conclude one of two things happened here. Alderson screwed up -- or actually wanted to create tension. Or an effort was made to allay Towers' fears (the article says sources say one was) but failed (for unknown reasons but if I have to choose, I'll blame the whiner).
I think folks are mis-reading the shot at Hoyer. It doesn't read well but I don't think Towers meant it as an insult to Hoyer. He's upset that the team told him they were going to replace him with someone pretty experienced, then didn't. Now, I'll grant you, I'm not sure why this would annoy Towers particularly. It makes perfect sense if you are up for a job, you're told they're looking for someone who ran a department, you ran a department, then they hire somebody who didn't. But this seems to be "you're fired"; "oh bummer, what are you looking for to replace me?"; "someone with some exec experience, who at least ran a deparment"; "good, because hiring someone with less experience than that would be a real insult to me!"
Okay, but aside from being fired by McCourt, what is the evidence suggesting DePodesta doesn't succeed in a high-testoserone environment?
It's amusing that people are speculating about DePo not being masculine enough, because in the quoted bit Towers is totally acting like a stereotypical woman.
You, sir, are gross.
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