San Diego Padres Fire General Manager Josh Byrnes
By Joel Burdeos
San Diego, CA- The San Diego Padres this afternoon have announced they’ve relieved General Manager Josh Byrnes of his duties.
San Diego Padres Sr. VP of Baseball Operations Omar Minaya and Assistant GMs AJ Hinch & Fred Uhlman, Jr. will handle the duties in interim basis.
According to Scott Miller of Bleacher Report the San Diego Padres will conduct a General Manager search and according to sources, hope to have someone in place by later this season. Miller also reports that Padres manager Bud Black and his coaching staff is safe and are expected to remain so at least until the teams new General Manager is hired.
There has been speculation for the past month that San Diego Padres manager Bud Black and general manager Josh Byrnes were close to being fired after the team’s disappointing and underachieving start to the season.
The death of Padres Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn this week complicated the decision for Padres ownership to make organizational changes. With the franchise in mourning and the memorial service for Gwynn taking place next Thursday. It is understandable that Padres ownership wanted to make changes before the memorial.
The Padres ownership inherited Byrnes when they took over in 2012 and despite Byrnes being signed through ‘17, ownership seem ready to select their own guy to lead the franchise. Byrnes has made good trades as the Padres GM, but his free-agent signings and contract extensions have not gone well. The biggest flaw on Byrnes resume remains the Matt Latos trade. The Padres gambled by trading away their top-of-the-rotation starter to the Cincinnati Reds for Edinson Volquez, Yonder Alonso, Yasmani Grandal and Brad Boxberger.
At the time the trade looked like a excellent move for the Padres, but today that trade continues to haunt to the Padres. Volquez and Boxberger are no longer with the Padres and Alonso and Grandal have failed to live up to their potential.
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The San Diego Padres were viewed by many to have the potential to be a surprise team in Major League Baseball this season, but instead the San Diego Padres have the 3rd-worst record in baseball and their offense ranks last in runs, batting average, home runs, RBI, slugging percentage, on-base percentage, hits and are on pace to be one of the Worst Offenses in MLB History.
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For the past few seasons Bud Black and Josh Byrnes have gotten away with the teams mediocre performance due to ownership change and low expectations. This season though while not everyone agreed that the Padres would be the surprise team in baseball, there was the expectation that this team with a franchise high $90.1 million payroll would be competitive and compete for a wild-card berth. Instead this team is one of the worst in baseball and the time had come for a change in Padres management.