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Dbacks announce Kevin Towers is leaving to pursue other opportunities. Also, assistant GM Billy Ryan will not have his contract renewed.
— Nick Piecoro (@nickpiecoro) October 3, 2014
It is probably for the best. Having Towers around, would be like breaking up with a girlfriend, then asking her to stick around despite your new relationship, just because you like her cooking. I feel confident in saying such an arrangement is unlikely to work out too well for anyone, no matter how much "sense" it may appear to make. I imagine the decision by Towers to decline the role he was offered here, may also save the team from having to pay the remainder of his contract, since it's now a case of him quitting, rather than being fired. But I'm not familiar with the legal ins and outs of the contract, so that's just me speculating.
I'm also not sure what "other opportunities" Towers will have. He left the Padres, having converted them into a 75-win outfit, and averaging four games per year below .500 over his tenure there. He leaves the D-backs as a 64-win team, and also below .500 during his time with the franchise. It's not a great track record: as Oscar Wilde once put it [citation needed], "to be fired as GM by one team may be regarded as a misfortune; to be fired by two looks like carelessness." I don't think many fans will look back on the Towers era fondly, and most will likely be glad he has now left the organization entirely.