Reports: Phillies to hire Matt Klentak as GM

It appears the Philadelphia Phillies have a new general manager. According to multiple reports on Twitter on Saturday, the Phillies are prepared to hire Matt Klentak as the new general manager of the team. Nick Cafardo of The Boston Globe was the first to report the hire.

Sources: Phillies to name Matt Klentak GM

— Nick Cafardo (@nickcafardo) October 24, 2015

Klentak will come to the Phillies after serving as an assistant general manager with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, beating out other reported finalists Dan Kantrovitz of the Oakland Athletics and Cham Bloom of the Tampa Bay Rays. As noted by Jim Salisbury of CSNPhilly.com, Klentak previously worked with new Phillies president Andy MacPhail in Baltimore, which helped make him a possible leading candidate for the job as the search continued. The good news is Klentak has a good background in advanced baseball analytics, which will be a major step forward for the franchise as it moves on from the Ruben Amaro era. This current MLB postseason is another example of how key analytics can be in building a successful team.

Klentak got started in the big league front office game in 2003 with the Colorado Rockies in the baseball operations department. He moved on to work four years in the Major League Baseball Labor Relations Department before joining MacPhail in Baltimore and contributing to working on the 2006 collective bargaining agreement. In 2008 MacPhail promoted Klentak to Director of Baseball Operations and he joined the Angels in 2011 as an assistant general manager. He held that role until this year. Klentak interviewed for the open GM position with the Angels following the resignation of Jerry Dipoto in Anaheim, but the Angels hired Billy Eppler instead. Eppler was a finalist for the Angels GM job in 2011, but the franchise went with Dipoto instead, so his chances of getting the job ahead of Klentak were probably pretty good.

So the new front office is pretty much set with MacPhail and Klentak set to guide the rebuild. It would seem the Phillies will be in good hands, although this will be Klentak’s first job as the head general manager of a franchise that has some work to do.

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