Should new ownership retain Padres Prez Tom Garfinkel?

The UT's Nick Canepa wrote an article weeks ago that suggested that a new Padres owner would likely bring in their own people to manage the club in the Front Office. It sounds like common sense. It's a fact that owners like to surround themselves with people they know and trust, they don't typically like to inherit executives from former regimes. Just ask Jeff Moorad who brought his associates from Arizona with him to San Diego.

I’m not saying anyone in Padreville (who isn’t playing) should be released. I’m just reading you the first chapter from “The Way of the World in Sports.” You lose, you fail, and those running the day-to-day business are the first to get the front end of a Ferragamo loafer.

George Mitrovich of the City Club of San Diego took this to mean that Canepa wanted Padres President and CEO Tom Garfinkel to be removed. Re-read Canepa's first sentence and you'll see that he isn't demanding anyone be released and never names Garfinkel by name in his article.

Mitchvich defends Garfinkel nonetheless and makes the argument that the Padres desperately need Leadership Stability while naming all of Garfinkel's accomplishments.

there’s a large number of people in San Diego who haven’t missed what Tom Garfinkel has accomplished; men and women of standing in our city, who know baseball and business, who believe the best decision any new ownership group can make is to keep Tom Garfinkel as CEO and build upon his accomplishments – who believe privately but will act publicly to declare their support.

Mitrovich won't quite put Garfinkel on par with "the game's one true genius" Larry Lucchino, but what if even the genius thinks Garfinkel deserves to stay?

Larry Lucchino, president/CEO of the Red Sox, told me in Boston, Tom Garfinkel of the Padres deserves to stayno matter who buys the team!

— George Mitrovich (@cityclubsd) May 27, 2012

Since Dex and I are proteges of Mentor Garfinkel and have sworn our loyalty by exchanging Jalapeno Handshakes you probably don't care much what we think on the subject. But until Mitrovich wrote his response to Canepa I had just assumed that new ownership would mean a new Padres president. Now I wonder if it is possible that Garfinkel and his staff could stay in place through the changing of the guards.