Major League Baseball

Padres introduce Hoyer as new general manager

Published Oct. 27, 2009 1:23 a.m. ET

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Jeff Moorad is so enamored with the way the Boston Red Sox do business that he hired another one of Theo Epstein's assistants, this time to run the San Diego Padres. Jed Hoyer was formally introduced as the Padres' general manager on Monday. He was hired during the weekend after spending eight seasons with the Red Sox. He'd been an assistant to Epstein since the end of the 2003 season. The 35-year-old Hoyer replaces Kevin Towers, who was fired during the final weekend of the season after 14 seasons as GM. Moorad, the Padres' vice chairman and CEO, said Hoyer was the most consistently recommended candidate in the industry and the first candidate he interviewed for the job. "I had the most positive feedback on him," Moorad said. "They all had the same description about a guy who's committed, a guy who had learned in the right shop, with the right background, that learned with a winning tradition, in an organization that knew how to ultimately win the big prize. "For me that's critical. A young executive with a couple of World Series rings on his finger is the kind of executive that I want to lead this organization on the baseball side." Hoyer was in the Red Sox front office when Boston won the World Series in 2003 and 2007. When Moorad ran the Arizona Diamondbacks, he hired Epstein assistant Josh Byrnes as his GM. After firing Towers, Moorad said he wanted a more "strategic approach" from his GM. Towers was known more as a seat-of-the-pants GM who built four NL West winners and had his 1998 club reach the World Series, where it was swept by the Yankees. Hoyer said he wants to build a consistent winner through scouting and player development rather than via free agency and trades. "There's no magic formula that I learned in Boston, there's no special sauce," Hoyer said. "I think it comes down to the building blocks of baseball, which are scouting and player development. This game ultimately comes down to great scouting, it comes down to great coaching, which I want to instill here." Epstein worked under Towers in the Padres' baseball operations department before moving to Boston as assistant GM, then being promoted to GM. "Jed has been an immensely valuable member of our baseball operations team since joining the Red Sox in 2002," Epstein said in a statement. "His combination of analytical ability, feel for the game, interpersonal skills and creativity helped make us tick, and he played a role in virtually every major decision we have made." Hoyer was the first candidate Moorad interviewed, even before he fired Towers. "At the end of the day I liked being able to hire someone out of the Red Sox organization," Moorad said. "There's an argument that they've got three or four future GMs working in their front office. We think we got the best of that group and I'm excited to have someone who was mentored by Theo Epstein and Larry Lucchino." Lucchino, president of the Red Sox, held the same position with the Padres. Asked for his definition of "strategic approach," Hoyer said it's not always about payroll. "First of all, in Boston, one of the things Theo always preached was to be a small-market team with big-market resources," Hoyer said. "The way I see it in Boston, a lot of time people focus on the size of payroll that we had. If you do that you miss a little bit of really what happened in Boston over the last seven years. If you look up down the roster and the everyday lineup, bullpen, starting pitching, you have great young players. "I look at it and think to myself, 'That team could be a very effective smaller market team.' I don't think the process is that much different, given the payroll. I think it still comes down to scouting and development, building a team with talented young players coming up through the system all the team." The Red Sox had baseball's fourth-highest payroll at just more than $122 million in 2009. The Padres were next-to-last at about $42.7 million. Moorad said the payroll will remain in the $40 million range. Hoyer also said he plans to use pitcher-friendly Petco Park, with its spacious outfield, as a resource. Hoyer inherits a young team that floundered for much of the season before playing well the final two months to finish fourth in the NL West at 75-87. The Padres, who won 37 of their final 62 games, finished ahead of the Arizona Diamondbacks, who had been put together by Moorad before he resigned in early January to pursue the purchase of the Padres from John Moores. Moorad and his group currently own about 35 percent of the team.

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