Matt Klentak 'beyond excited' at being selected Phillies' new GM

JOHN MIDDLETON, one of the Phillies ownership partners who remained in the shadows for decades, with nary a public comment in both good times or in bad, has emerged as maybe the signature voice of the franchise in the last four months.

Middleton's voice is an impassioned one, one of a billionaire who happens to be a Phillies fan at heart - and a fan of all of the local sports teams, in the interests of full disclosure. The 60-year-old, lifelong Philadelphian rattled off many of his childhood memories - from Chuck Bednarik to Kate Smith, Billy Cunningham to Cookie Rojas - when he introduced a man 25 years his junior as the new general manager of his and his city's baseball team late Monday morning.

"Let me tell you a bit about what it was like in 2008," Middleton told the 35-year-old Matt Klentak, seated to his right on the dais inside the media interview room at Citizens Bank Park.

"There was electricity in the air every night and somehow when the playoffs came around, they managed to ratchet that up to another level," Middleton continued. "You could literally feel the stadium swaying. And you've got a lot of work ahead of you. We're here to support you, but let's never forget our objective is to win. All of us, Matt, want to feel that stadium sway again."

After weeks of rigorous interviews, which began earlier this month in Chicago and concluded in Philadelphia last week, Middleton and team president Andy MacPhail introduced Klentak as vice president and as the 11th general manager in the 133-years of Phillies baseball on Monday. Klentak succeeds Ruben Amaro Jr., who was fired last month as the team was well on its way to finishing a season without a winning record for the fourth straight year.

The Phillies embarked on a rebuilding project this time a year ago. Klentak isn't coming aboard with the expectations to pull off the improbable (impossible?) and make a team that lost 99 games in 2015 into a contender in 2016.

The trio on the dais - Klentak, Middleton and MacPhail - used words such as "disciplined" and "road map" in talking about the big-picture view of their organization. But it was clear from Klentak's seat that he didn't decide to leave a comfortable situation as the assistant general manager with the Los Angeles Angels for a more challenging position in Philadelphia because he's a native East Coaster who likes fall foliage and the changing of seasons.

Klentak accepted the job because he sees the real possibility of obtaining sustained success in the big market, sports-crazed city he now calls home.

"That is ultimately what this is all about - you know that and I know that," Klentak said of winning. "Philadelphia knows that. That's why I'm here. I would not have left Mike Trout in his prime to come here if I didn't believe that."

With an ownership that's already demonstrated a commitment to winning through spending - the Phillies had one of baseball's top-five payrolls from 2010-14 - and the advantages of joining an organization that also has the No. 1 overall pick next June (and, thus, the No. 1 draft spending pool) along with the largest international signing pool, Klentak admitted there was certainly attractive qualities in jumping aboard the Phillies rebuilding ship. Factor in the $2.5 billion TV deal with Comcast that kicks in in 2016, and the new GM is set up to be in a particularly advantageous position in the very near future, with the resources to add, be it players or other personnel.

But all of that will come in due time. First, Klentak's primary job will be to work in simpatico with MacPhail to incorporate a new way of thinking into the upper levels of the Phillies front office.

Yes, the Dartmouth-educated Klentak is expected to continue to move management further into the age of analytics. But, the Medfield, Mass., native fashions himself as the well-rounded type who won't lose sight of the more traditional methods of building a winning baseball team, too.

"The Phillies have a long and proud history, particularly recent history, that was the result of some excellent evaluations and scouting," Klentak said. "To give credit where credit is due to the foundation of the club that was in the playoffs every year for a period there in the late 2000s was a product of some awesome scouting. I don't want to lose that. That is something we're going to continue to reinforce and utilize at every turn.

"But we also need to make sure we are gathering and utilizing all of the information at our disposal. Some of that may come in analytical form. Some of that may come via medical information. The real challenge is taking all of that information, and it is a ton, and combining it and synthesizing it and figuring out how that works into our process and making decisions accordingly. But let there be no doubt, we will be at the forefront of every single one of those areas and we will strive to be the best in everyone of those areas and have the best information."

MacPhail, Middleton, fellow ownership partners Jim and Pete Buck, and executive vice president and CEO Mike Stiles came to the conclusion that Klentak was the man for the job around 7 p.m. on Thursday night, according to Middleton. The five men met for a final round of interviews with three candidates last week: Klentak, Tampa Bay Rays vice president of baseball operations Chaim Bloom, and Oakland Athletics assistant GM Dan Kantrovitz.

Since he had worked for four years previously with MacPhail in Baltimore, Klentak was widely considered a favorite from the start of a process, a process that had nearly a dozen different names linked to the job at one point or another in the last six weeks. But Middleton said Monday that it was a very "objective and open process."

"I think one of the fundamental flaws in a hiring process is to become wedded to any candidate," Middleton said. "It tends to blind you to inevitable weaknesses. It tends to close your mind to the advantages and strengths of other candidates."

The decision was MacPhail's in the end. He felt more than comfortable putting the team in the hands of a young yet experienced executive who had the diverse background of working in MLB's labor relations department and being on the staff of three different teams (Los Angeles, Baltimore, Colorado) in three different stages of maintaining a competitive baseball team.

"By the time he got through it, Andy asked all of us the candidate we would choose if it were just our choice," Middleton said of the five people who sat through the final interview stage. "And we all kind of came to Matt independently. It was unanimous in that regard, but it really was Andy's decision."

Klentak, who had already waited patiently for two weeks in between interviews with the Phillies, while also trying to continue doing his job diligently with the Angels, with whom he had also interviewed for the GM job, received the phone call he had been waiting for on Friday morning.

"My jaw dropped," Klentak said. "It's funny, the question about (history with) Andy and whether this was a foregone conclusion - trust me, I didn't feel that way at all. When I got the call, I had no idea which way that call was going to go. It was surreal. I'm beyond excited."

Klentak's honeymoon stage in Philadelphia will barely last more than one night. The Phillies front office will convene Tuesday in Clearwater, Fla., to begin their annual weeklong organizational meetings. The discussions and debates will shape the offseason goals for a team in transition, one neck-deep in a rebuild after a flurry of trades last summer.

But when the same executives arrive back in Philly - and then head to Boca Raton, Fla., for the GM meetings in early November, and then to Nashville, Tenn., for baseball's winter meetings in December - it will be the 35-year-old Klentak, old enough to run for president but young enough to have the distinction as the youngest GM in Phillies history, who will have the fate of an organization at his fingertips.

MacPhail, hired in June, still ranks above him in the hierarchy of the Phils front office, but said Monday that Klentak would have "autonomy and authority."

"If it's done correctly, there isn't a decision that is made that is not sort of vetted on its way up," MacPhail said of the president-general manager relationship. "Any sort of decision that needs to be asked needs to be asked before we get to the 'yes-no' part . . . But at the end of the day, just like Ruben when he was here (at the trade deadline), they've got to execute the plan."

Blog: ph.ly/HighCheese