Sources: Kevin Towers Joining Yankees

Kevin Towers, the former Padres general manager, is joining the Yankees as a special assistant to general manager Brian Cashman, according to two major league sources.

Towers willl start with the Yankees next week in Tampa after being introduced on Tuesday. He'll scout amateurs and professionals. Also, he'll be a sounding board to Cashman, a longtime friend.

The Yankees will pay him $50,000, according to a Padres official, and the Padres will pay Towers more than $1 million in remaining salary.

Towers, who was unavailable for comment, has said he'd like to become a GM again.

The Padres have reached the playoffs in five of their 41 seasons. Four of those berths came within the 14-season Towers era. The third of the those teams reached the World Series in 1998 and was swept by the Yankees.

Late in their first season together, Padres CEO Jeff Moorad fired Towers, then the majors' longest-tenured GM, shortly before the Padres finished 75-87 and fourth in the National League West. Moorad replaced Towers with Jed Hoyer, a former assistant to Red Sox GM Theo Epstein.

In the last 11 years, the Padres have won only one playoff game. Towers worked for five different bosses in that span.

Towers was San Diego's scouting director when CEO Larry Lucchino moved him into San Diego's GM job after the 1995 season. He also has worked as a national cross-checker and an area scout, sometimes with the Pirates.

Towers will remain in San Diego, but his hiring by the Yankees further brings a San Diego flavor to Cashman's staff. Yankees pro scouting director Billy Eppler has San Diego roots, and Damon Oppenheimer, the senior vice president/director of scouting, is a former Padres scout.