A year of change continues for the Phillies on Monday morning when Matt Klentak will be introduced as the team’s new general manager in an 11 a.m. news conference at Citizens Bank Park.
The news conference will be streamed live here on CSNPhilly.com.
Klentak’s name had been a hot one on the list of potential candidates from the moment new club president Andy MacPhail announced that he was not renewing Ruben Amaro Jr.’s contract six weeks ago.
The 35-year-old Klentak had previously worked under MacPhail in the baseball operations department of the Baltimore Orioles. Klentak eventually moved on to the Los Angeles Angels and rose to the No. 2 position in that club’s baseball ops department. MacPhail left baseball for several years and was lured back into the game this summer by Phillies ownership.
On the day he announced MacPhail’s hiring, part owner John Middleton said MacPhail’s choice of a general manager — whether he chose to stick with Amaro or move on — would be “hugely important.”
Though the decision to hire Klentak was MacPhail’s, the ownership group — Middleton and Bill, Jim and Pete Buck — had a hand in it. On the day Amaro was let go, Middleton did not mince words in offering his thoughts on the qualities he wanted to see in the team’s new GM.
He wanted MacPhail to bring into the organization a progressive thinker, someone who embraced and was steeped in the use of analytics in making baseball decisions. Middleton used the word “change” several times and made it clear that he wanted to see MacPhail hire someone who could drive change within an organization that had previously relied mostly on old-school scouting in making baseball decisions.
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Not that there’s anything wrong with old-school scouting. The Phillies won a World Series in 2008 with a team that was built on the concept. MacPhail himself is mostly considered a traditional baseball guy. In June, he acknowledged the importance of “human intelligence,” a fancy way of saying “scouting.” But at the time, he also conceded that decision-making must be augmented by the use of analytics. The more tools a team can use in making decisions, the better.
Enter Klentak.
The Phillies had already begun to use more analytics under Amaro, but Klentak will take it to another level. Surely, he will talk more about that on Monday.
These aren’t your father’s Phillies anymore.
In the last 14 months, the team has had three club presidents with Pat Gillick briefly succeeding longtime leader David Montgomery before handing off to MacPhail, ownership’s handpicked man. The club moved on from longtime scouting director Marti Wolever and replaced him with Johnny Almaraz. World Series heroes Jimmy Rollins, Chase Utley and Cole Hamels were traded. Ryne Sandberg resigned as manager and Pete Mackanin handled an interim assignment well enough to earn a full-time shot. Amaro was let go.
Now more change as Klentak comes aboard.
He brings the “fresh perspective” and “fresh approach” MacPhail said he needed when he explained his decision to part with Amaro.
He brings the change in organizational thinking and philosophy that ownership clearly wanted.
Time will tell what else he brings.