OCT. 26: The Phillies have announced the hiring of Klentak as vice president and general manager, adding that, at 35 years of age, Klentak is the youngest GM in the club’s history.
“In Matt we found an executive with the keen ability to understand cutting-edge baseball analytics, coupled with superior scouting, player development and leadership skills,” said president Andy MacPhail in the press release that announced the move. “Additionally, his commitment and resolve to build the foundation for a championship-caliber team was evident every step of the way through the process. I trust Matt to lead the Phillies as we all rededicate ourselves to return championship baseball to Philadelphia.”
OCT. 24: The Phillies will name Angels assistant Matt Klentak as their next GM, Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe tweets. Yesterday, it emerged that Klentak was a finalist for the job, along with Chaim Bloom of the Rays and Dan Kantrovitz of the Athletics. As MLB.com’s Todd Zolecki noted (via Twitter), all three candidates were in their 30s and had Ivy League and analytics backgrounds.
Klentak began working in the Rockies baseball operations department soon after graduating from Dartmouth with an economics degree. He then worked in labor relations for MLB for several seasons and helped shape the 2006 Collective Bargaining Agreement. He departed to become director of baseball operations for the Orioles, where he worked under current Phillies president of baseball operations Andy MacPhail. Following the 2011 season, he headed to the Angels, where he specialized in working with contracts, arbitration and roster issues. He was recently a candidate for the Angels GM position that went to Billy Eppler. (While with the Angels, Klentak was also one of the first-ever guests on the MLBTR Podcast, appearing one year ago today.)
“Matt brings so much to the table,” said then-Angels GM Jerry Dipoto. “Matt understands the inner workings of baseball from the field to the finance. He understands baseball from the staff in the clubhouse to the players on the field to how to communicate back and forth with a finance department and ownership.”
MLB.com’s Alden Gonzalez writes (Twitter links) that Klentak did much of the Angels’ GM work once Dipoto resigned (even though Bill Stoneman was officially the Angels’ interim GM). Klentak is analytically oriented, but is regarded as a good communicator.
The Phillies’ 2015 season was, of course, a miserable one, but the situation Klentak is entering is in many ways rather favorable. Thanks to what appears to be a solid series of recent top draft picks and the strong trade of Cole Hamels to the Rangers, the Phillies have a very good collection of young talent headed by J.P. Crawford, Maikel Franco, Aaron Nola, Jake Thompson, Nick Williams, Jorge Alfaro and Cornelius Randolph. The Phillies have also historically had relatively large payrolls, which could give Klentak the ability to add to that core once it matures.
Besides Klentak, Bloom and Kantrovitz, other interviewees for the Phillies’ position included former Marlins executive Larry Beinfest, MLB vice president of baseball operations Kim Ng, Indians vice president of player personnel Ross Atkins, Cardinals director of player personnel Matt Slater, Royals assistant GM J.J. Picollo and former Cubs GM Jim Hendry. Klentak’s departure is the second significant one for Eppler and the Angels’ front office this week — the Mariners just hired Klentak’s fellow Angels assistant Scott Servais to be their manager.
Angels front office is being picked apart.
They were all Dipoto’s disciples. Can you blame them for leaving when Dipoto wasn’t given the power he wanted and deserved?
They’re obviously also getting huge promotions.
Power like declining the trade offer of CarGo for Shoemaker straight up? Oh wait you mean trading Walden for Hanson? Oh wait I know signing Blanton for 2 years? The only power Dipoto wasn’t given was to fire Scioscia. Even after sabotaging the season by refusing to trade for another left fielder. Because players like Joyce and Blanton were great players according to analytics. Both did great jobs keeping the Angels from making the playoffs.
It would of taken a lot more to get CarGo, prolly Newcomb and Ellis and another prospect. And now there is a rumor the angels are looking to trade for Longoria, not sure if this is a eppler move or Arte.
Neither Joyce nor Blanton were really considered “great” players by analytics when the Angels signed them. Worth noting that neither was really “disastrous” for him either, though I imagine the Angels would rather have Jepsen.
I don’t understand why they couldn’t of traded Jepsen to the blue jays for adam lind, He would of fit perfect for the angels.
How about having to sign the Joe Blanton’s of the world because your owner has money tied up in terrible contracts?
Got to blame Arte for the pujols hamilton and wilson contracts, plus trading for vernon wells. If Arte never stepped in on those deals, I bet the angels would of had Beltre , Greinke and others.
And yet they had the best record in baseball last season with a younger, cheaper rotation…
You are believing an old narrative that has long since been disproven. It has been well documented over the past few months that Jerry Dipoto took the aggressive baseball philosophy away and implemented his own, which sparked not only a rift between he and Mike Scioscia, but between him and the coaching staff, and then he eventually lost the players. You don’t take player development and scouting out of the hands of your coaches. The Angels I think should be used as an example as to the possible ramifications of the young numbers crunching GM movement that Ken Rose that talked about in one of his latest articles.
*Ken Rosenthal
Now that the Phillies have a manager, president and GM, they can now focus on the team.
-Dump Howard
-Add a setup guy
-Add 1 33-start-a-year SP
-Add 1 Harang/Roberto Hernandez-type SP
-Find a taker for Ruiz
-Don’t trade any young talent.
If he can accomplish those things, it puts the Phillies in a good spot for 2016.
they have the money to spend in free agency if they choose to, they would have to eat most of howard’s contract to trade him, I think the O’s would be a perfect fit for him because I don’t think they re-sign davis. I would keep ruiz there until Alfro is ready, they have plenty of young pitchers coming through the system, A good thing is they are not picking up Cliff Lee’s option.
They have Cam Rupp to play stopgag for Alfaro/Knapp. Ruiz was the backup in 2015, and he didn’t play well at all.
Lee is retiring (I believe).
I just wonder if they are going to make any big moves, I doubt they go out and sign an ace, Maybe a second tier starter like Mike Leake or Mat Latos.
Ryan Howard has been below replacement value since he blew his Achilles and was last better than average when Mike Trout graduated from high school. He is no the answer for the Orioles no matter what happens with Chris Davis, Crash Davis, Erik Davis or any other Davis.
If they can’t find any american league contender to take him, then I guess he’s stuck there in philly, I wonder what they will do in the offseason, I read somewhere somebody said that if they want to trade somebody to get even more talent, giles is the perfect trade piece. they better not trade him
phils get rid of the deadwood fa singings sp fister,leake or latos and a bat upton or heyward
The only option they really should consider is Heyward. Though I’d support a deal for Alex Gordon. Free Agent classes will keep getting younger.
There is no reason to dump Howard, there are no 1st base options. Just platoon him with Ruf and wait the year out.
Rupp will start ahead of Ruiz and is just fine until you work out if Joseph or Alfaro are going to make it.
It’s too early to worry about a setup guy, let’s start being in games first. And the bullpen was decent, let’s see if there are internal options.
Adding a SP might make a little sense, but it certainly doesn’t seem to be a priority. It would need to be a durable, relatively young, 2nd starter, but that seems risky.
The move that makes sense is Jason Heyward, if he’d even want to play in Philly. I keep hearing about signing Francouer, but why. Heyward is only 26, fits with the youth movement and can actually play.
I can see some reclamation project SP’s, but I’d prefer to roll out Eickhoff, Morgan and Asher and see what they have as opposed to more of Williams or Harang.
I’m starting to wonder if Kim Ng is ever gonna get a chance. She is extremely qualified. Does no team want to be the first to hire a female GM?
I was thinking the same thing. You never hear her name come up in any teams gm search.
Perhaps no team Kim Ag has interviewed for has felt she was the most qualified? Or should she simply get the job because she’s female? Do you know what she says and how she interviews? Does her views—short term and long term—mesh with the team’s ownership? Perhaps it’s not that she is female that is keeping her from getting a GM job…there are countless reasons why she may not now nor ever reach the position. There are 30 major league GM jobs…how many “qualified” assistants are there working on/with those 30 teams? Hundreds. Many of them will never become GM either, but they should all step aside so a team can hire the first female GM…even if they feel more confident hiring someone else?
THANK YOU
Matt Klentak will do what McPhail directs him to do just like Amaro and Gillick-same setup but different methods. I hope he does well but Amaro set up Klentak for another successful run. I would of rather seen Dan Kantrovitz as the choice as he worked with the Cardinals in player development.
Not sure how Amaro set anything up except for his albatross contracts expiring and his terrible team having the #1 pick. Any of the prospects in the Hamels deal are not going to amazingly turn the team into champions in 2018. Amaro missed in every draft outside of Crawford and Nola. His late picks never panned out. The Phillies whole North American amateur scouting was awful before they finally got rid of Marty. The international scouting which was in place long before Amaro at least has given them Franco and some potential big leaguers.
Kantrovitz took over after Luhnow. There’s better reasons to want him than 2 years of drafting for the Cardinals.