Skip to content
Phillies
Link copied to clipboard

Phillies' brass wants a homegrown winner

New GM Matt Klentak will put a special emphasis on pitching.

ONE OF THE many things that came out of Monday's introductory news conference for general manager Matt Klentak was how the Phillies' current regime believes winning teams are built.

Both Klentak and ownership partner John Middleton said that free agency was not the right avenue at this point for the rebuilding Phillies, and that it's normally not the best method for any team.

"I don't think you can buy a winner," Middleton said. "The Yankees had the highest payroll in baseball for 15 years, and they never even made the playoffs for those years if you go back to (1982-94). You have to build sports teams. Specifically, you have to build baseball teams from the ground up."

When asked whether there was a "model franchise" in baseball to follow for a blueprint, Middleton mentioned the New York Mets, Chicago Cubs, Houston Astros and St. Louis Cardinals. All were in the postseason in 2015, largely built from a homegrown farm system - not unlike the 2007-11 Phillies.

Asked specifically what the Phillies needed to add to their own building foundation, Klentak, who was admittedly still on the first day of his job and thus processing the inventory, said the focus is always on pitching.

"If you can pitch, you have a chance to win every single night," Klentak said. "The New York Mets are demonstrating that right now. They're riding it all the way to the World Series and perhaps to a championship. If you can pitch, you have a chance.

"That will absolutely become an organizational focus for us, to add pitching at every turn. In trades, through waiver claims, in the draft, internationally, free agency. However we need to do it, we will add pitching, pitching, pitching. Because if you can pitch, you have a chance to win every night."

The Phillies have the No. 1 overall pick in what's expected to be a pitching-heavy 2016 draft. Among those prospects: University of Florida lefthander A.J. Puk, Barnegat (N.J.) High lefty Jason Groome, and Kansas high school righthander Riley Pint.

Pat Gillick, former Phillies GM and president and current front-office adviser, reportedly scouted Puk earlier this month.

Quotable

Team president Andy MacPhail reached the end of a thorough search for a general manager on Monday, when Matt Klentak was officially hired.

MacPhail's interview process brought a trio of finalists with Ivy League degrees to Philadelphia last week: Klentak (Dartmouth), Oakland Athletics assistant GM Dan Kantrovitz (Brown) and Tampa Bay Rays vice president of baseball operations Chaim Bloom (Yale).

"There are a lot of very talented people in the game," MacPhail said. "I actually got to a point where I was thinking, 'What a waste that the Americans are investing this much brainpower in sports.' "

Blog: ph.ly/HighCheese