Revolving Door Facing New San Diego Padres General Manager

How many familiar faces will the San Diego Padres be without when the team opens spring training from Peoria, Arizona in Febuary of next year?

Trevor Hoffman is in Milwaukee for another season, signing a one year $8 million dollar deal with a mutual option for the 2011 season that could be worth up to $8.5 million.

Jake Peavy is a member of the Chicago White Sox after being traded prior to the trade deadline at the end of July.

Now, the Padres will be without Kevin Towers, the team's general manager since 1996, after new owner Jeff Moorad and the Padres decided to go in another direction.

"We found ourselves at a challenging spot with our general manager situation with one year remaining on his contract. We had to make a decision to extend him or to make the decision to move on and make a change at this point," Moorad told reporters during a press conference on Sunday.

The question now becomes, where do the Padres go from here?

According to Moorad, there are no internal candidates, ruling out Paul DePodesta the Padres' special assistant for baseball operations.

Though, there are rumors of who could be the next general manager in San Diego, the bigger question is what decisions will the new general manager make.

We assume at this point that outfielder Brian Giles will not be brought back, especially with the emergence of Will Venable.

But there are other lingering questions; Will they keep both Kevin Kouzmanoff and Chase Headley or will they look to trade one or the other?

As far as most Padre fans are concerned, they're ok with trading Chase Headley and leaving Kevin Kouzmanoff at third base, especially with the kind of hitting Kouz was doing in the second half of the season.

The biggest question facing the new general manager is the fate of first baseman Adrian Gonzalez and closer Heath Bell.

Prior to the trade deadline, there were rumors that the Padres were close to trading both players to either the Angels or the Dodgers. When both deals broke down, it was Jake Peavy that ended up being shown the door.

With Peavy's contract off the books, it allows San Diego to begin talks with Gonzalez and his agent about a long term extension, if the team decides he'll be a part of their future.

As for Bell, his days in San Diego seem to be numbered. There is a lot of talk that the team should trade him at his highest value and try to get as much as possible in return.

If that's the case, who will be the next closer for the Padres? I would look no further than Padres' reliever Mike Adams, who has been nothing short of dominant since his return from Tommy John Surgery.

Adams gave up just three earned runs in 37 innings pitched this season; good for a 0.73 earned run average and holding opposing hitters to a .111 batting average against. This exemplifies why he may be able to take the closer's roll and run with it.

So, as the Padre players watch the post season and the teams involved, their front office has a lot of things on their plate and a lot of decisions coming up that will impact this team for the next several years.

Though we may not know those decisions for the next several weeks, believe me when I tell you that the Padre players and their fans will be anxiously awaiting each and every one.