In San Diego, Two Might Be a Crowd

Although nothing would prevent Alderson from still ascending to baseball's throne from his present job, he signed a five-year deal with the Padres that included an ownership stake, and he says he is prepared to remain with the franchise for a long while.

"I took this job," Alderson said, "on its own merits."

In contrast to Alderson, Towers -- despite his relative youth -- is more of an old-school, scout's-honor type of talent evaluator, who freely admits he sometimes operates on pure instinct. He is also known as a straight shooter -- sometimes too straight, as in March, when he admitted to a reporter he looked the other way regarding Ken Caminiti's steroid use in the late 1990s.

Under Alderson's reign, Towers might be wise to clam up -- and to learn to use a calculator.

Many observers saw a glimpse of the Padres' new Moneyball bent in the team's draft choices earlier this month, when the team chose college players with each of its first 14 picks. A year ago, by contrast, the Padres chose high schoolers with their first three picks, including the No. 1 overall pick.

Alderson and Towers, naturally, dispute the notion that theirs is a marriage doomed to fail.

"Even though my background is on the scouting side, in the last five or six years, we've used a blend of statistical analysis as well," Towers said. "With [Alderson] being an innovator and a pioneer with that stuff, I think I can learn even more about that. And at the same time, he realizes that you still need the scout's eyes as well."

Alderson said: "Nothing is ever as dramatically black-and-white as people think. I'm certainly not wedded to a particular approach, nor is [Towers]. I think Kevin and I have worked pretty well together, although there haven't been lot of major decisions we've had to make yet, things like trades."

That day could be coming soon. The Padres are besieged by injuries -- with catcher Ramon Hernandez, first baseman Phil Nevin, second baseman Mark Loretta and number two starter Adam Eaton all on the disabled list -- and are in danger of being caught by both the Diamondbacks and the Dodgers, who are themselves dealing with an epidemic of strains, sprains and pulls.

"It's a pretty balanced division," third baseman Sean Burroughs said. "There's not one team that's going to run away with it. But we feel like, if we keep it together day-in and day-out, the division should be ours for the winning."

Perhaps in the days leading up to the July 31 trade deadline, the Padres can locate a player who satisfies both Towers's eyes and Alderson's calculator.

Perhaps also, in his role as the conduit between Towers and owner John Moores, Alderson can convince the latter to bump up the payroll a little bit, something Moores has been loath to do -- chafing many fans who recall promises supposedly made about spending big if the citizenry put up the money for the team's new digs.

Although the opening of Petco Park last year helped the team's bottom line, it is hard to get past the franchise's fundamental problem of having nowhere to grow. The Padres are boxed in geographically -- by the Pacific Ocean to the west, the desert to the east, Mexico to the south and two other franchises within two hours to the north. But people here like the isolation; the biggest civic hot-button issue is how to prevent more people from moving in.

Yes, it's still cozy down here in San Diego, still comfy at Petco Park. Just not as much as it was a couple of months ago.