Jed Hoyer, the Padres new General Manager

Jed Hoyer, former assistant General Manger of the Boston Red Sox, has been named as the new San Diego Padres General Manager. You can find out a little about Mr. Hoyer (he's 35, is he really Mr.-worthy? Am I the first to call him Mr. Hoyer?) from Wikipedia. I immediately take notice of the fact he used to be a pitcher, like Towers. Not that will mean anything about his future performance, it is just one of those things we latch onto to like a life raft in a stormy indecisive sea. Its comfortable, its familiar, and therefore it associates itself that way in my impression and I feel a bit of hope. It also appears he is a native New Englander. I hope he doesn't have a thick accent, that would be a bit annoying.

I found a great Q&A from Baseball Analysts, with solid questions regarding the philosophies of running a front office. It is a bit old, published in February 2007, but I wouldn't think its out of date at all. A couple of good quotes:

The money quote (from my speculative Moorad perspective); “As boring as it sounds, I believe that the most important thing is to have a well-constructed,
well-thought out process to player acquisitions.” Does a well-constructed, well-thought out process include contingencies to take payroll from $70M to $40M in two months? I'm thinking no, but hopefully, knock wood, that won't be a recurring problem around here.

I also liked this quote about some prospects: “…but we are going to be careful not to overheat the hype machine.” Its all about expectation management! No, he wasn’t talking about the 37-25 stretch to end the Pads season, but he will be!

At Baseball Prospectus, Will Carroll wrote an article in June 2008 about the next 10 names that would be showing up in GM searches. He had Mr. Hoyer as the number 1 name, with the following write up:

"Hoyer has been at Theo Epstein's right hand since the start of the Red Sox revival. Taking over as Assistant GM after Josh Byrnes left to head up the rebuilding of the Diamondbacks, Hoyer was mentioned by nearly everyone asked as "the next big thing." Given Byrnes' success in Arizona, the Boston slot seems charmed. Like many in the delegatory Sox front office, Hoyer has had his hands in the various areas of baseball operations and doesn't seem to have a pronounced weakness. Some may remember that Hoyer was briefly the co-GM of the Red Sox during Epstein's equally brief hiatus, a testament to John Henry's confidence in the young exec. (Being 34 isn't the knock it once was; maybe it's old for this new generation of front office talent.) Hoyer has made it clear that he's comfortable winning rings in Boston and would want a similar situation to what Byrnes has in Arizona before leaving."

I last thing I found was a Boston.com recap of a chat at Sawxheads.com, a Red Sox fan blog, from September 8, 2008. Nothing interesting there however, just a bunch of worthless Red Sox questions.

In all, not a lot of web content about Mr. Hoyer. He has some big shoes to fill, and seemingly a lot to learn in switching from a cash cow to a small market team, but has a couple of things going for him. First, the relaxed and patient atmosphere of San Diego in which to work. More importantly, there is hardly any pressure in this situation, and no where to go but up.

Welcome and good luck Mr. Hoyer.