Interim Manager Pat Murphy no longer "interim" or "manager"

Well, that didn't take long. Shortly after the end of the Padres season, the team has decided the fate of Interim Manager Pat Murphy. The Union-Tribune's Dennis Lin has the news:

Padres announce that interim manager Pat Murphy will not return in the same capacity in 2016. Search for new manager begins immediately.

— Dennis Lin (@dennistlin) October 4, 2015

There's no official word on whether Murphy will head back to El Paso, stay with the club in some other capacity, or look for a gig elsewhere. With plenty of coaching positions expected to open up around baseball, he may have multiple offers. Murphy took over on June 16th, two days after Bud Black's firing. Since then, the Padres have gone 42-54 and slipped from two games under .500 and six back of first place to fourteen under and eight back. While it's impossible to determine exactly what a manager contributes to a team, there was clearly a desire from the front office that Murphy would turn the team around, and he missed that mark the way Ruben Rivera misses a base.

So now we know what A.J. Preller's first acquisition of the offseason will be: A new manager.