Dave Stewart is Arizona Diamondback’s new GM

It’s official. All the speculation can be stopped because former MLB pitcher Dave Stewart has been named the new general manager of the Arizona Diamondbacks. The team announced the news Thursday.

After bringing in Hall of Fame manager Tony La Russa to take over team operations, giving him a newly made position above that of the general manager everyone knew that changes would be made. La Russa observed and researched and studied the Diamondbacks for a few months before recently firing former general manager Kevin Towers about two weeks ago.

The rumors about Stewart being one of the main candidates started almost right away but La Russa did his due diligence and interviewed other candidates. In the end it did come down to Stewart.

Stewart played for 16 seasons in the Majors as a pitcher. Eight of those seasons he played under Tony La Russa with the Oakland Athletics, where he made some of his greatest accomplishements.

Stewart called the D-backs “the perfect challenge for me.”

Prior to playing with the Athletics, Stewart spent time with the Los Angeles Dodgers, Texas Rangers and Philadelphia Phillies but he seemed most at home playing with La Russa as his skipper in Oakland.

With Oakland, Stewart was named MVP of the 1989 World Series and received the 1990 American League Championship Series (ALCS) MVP honors. He had four consecutive seasons with the Athletics in which he won at least 20 games.

He went to the Toronto Blue Jays after the 1992 season and won the ALCS MVP Award again in 1993 when the Blue Jays went on to win the World Series on Joe Carter‘s famous walk-off home run.

Stewart returned to Oakland to retire as an Athletic in 1995. He has a career record 168-129 with 19 saves and a 3.95 ERA. La Russa said of Stewart,

"“I’ve known Stew for nearly three decades, and his diverse background includes championships on the field both as a player and coach, in the front office and in contract negotiations as a player representative.”"

La Russa also named De Jon Watson senior vice president/baseball operations. Both Watson and Stewart will be officially announced at a press conference on Friday.

La Russa just recently posted this picture of Dave Stewart and himself. I had to include it because it appears to be a very happy moment for the two men and for a lot of people who have already seen the pair work together in the past.