Matt Klentak on the hot seat as the weather gets colder and baseball's Hot Stove warms up

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That chair is getting hotter under Klentak's butt as the weather gets colder

Major League Baseball’s off-season “Hot Stove” began to heat up in front offices all across the game this past weekend. Dozens of players became free agents eligible to negotiate with all 30 clubs at that point.

Over three days beginning today in Carlsbad, California the MLB general managers are meeting. While most of the work they undertake will be of the procedural type not directly involving player movement, the groundwork for future deals can certainly take place here.

The Phillies and their fans need look no further than their last World Series champions for proof that important deals can actually get done at the MLB General Manager meetings.

It was 11 years ago tomorrow, on November 7, 2007 at these very same meetings that Phillies GM Pat Gillick swung a deal with Houston Astros GM Ed Wade. Gillick obtained closer Brad Lidge and infielder Eric Bruntlett in that trade in exchange for pitcher Geoff Geary and a pair of prospects, outfielder Michael Bourn and infielder Mike Costanzo.

Flash-forward just over a decade later, and it’s general manager Matt Klentak who will be attempting to either swing such a deal or lay the groundwork for one that he hopes will prove just as beneficial for today’s version of the Philadelphia Phillies.

Klentak is clearly on the hot seat this off-season. If not with Phillies ownership, then certainly with the club’s fan base. Since being hired to the position in October 2015, his moves have proven to be a mixed bag to this point.

“I’m not going to make decisions because of what they mean to me for my job security” ~ Matt Klentak, September 2018

To be fair, the team that he inherited was a disaster. Three straight losing seasons, each worse than the last, had left the Phillies as the worst team in baseball when he arrived.

However, it is arguable as to how much the situation has actually improved on his watch. While the Phillies reached the 80-wins plateau for the first time in a half-dozen years this past season, it was a sixth consecutive losing campaign, the third in a row under Klentak.

It would be difficult to take an objective look at the Phillies anticipated regulars for the 2019 season at this point and find any homegrown position player who looks to have their lineup spot secured for years to come.

Rhys Hoskins, drafted under the regime of previous GM Ruben Amaro, should have such a claim to the first base position. However, Klentak went out and spent $60 million unwise dollars on an aging Carlos Santana last December, presumably relegating Hoskins to an out-of-position role in left field for the foreseeable future.

Klentak made what seemed an astute move back during spring training of 2018, signing the club’s top prospect Scott Kingery to a team-friendly six-year contract with three additional club-option years.

Kingery, another Amaro draftee and a minor league Gold Glove second baseman, was then switched to shortstop at the big-league level. It was a position where he had played just two games over three minor league seasons, and he struggled mightily both at the plate and in the field.

Klentak also handed a $30 million contract guaranteed over five years to Odubel Herrera, a player whose baseball brain betrays him far too regularly, and whose play has steadily deteriorated since signing the deal.

WIP's Angelo Cataldi dukes it out with Phillies manager Gabe Kapler

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I rehashed the Philadelphia Phillies collapse over the final two months of the season in last week’s piece on the “significant changes” that I feel general manager Matt Klentak needs to make in this coming off-season. So, let’s not wade through that murky water again.

A great many Phillies fans became disillusioned by the collapse of the team after they had spent a month in first place in the National League East Division. One of those fans was local morning talk show host Angelo Cataldi of SportsRadio 94 WIP FM.

In a piece published on Monday at The Philly Voice, Cataldi laid much of the blame for that collapse at the feet of Klentak.

“For the three puzzling years of his tenure running the Phillies, the novice executive has mastered only one skill, and that’s finding a way to wriggle out of blame for his own resume of failure.”

“Matt Klentak is incompetent.”

“The young double-talker has survived three years of bungling because he has hidden, effectively, behind the new wave of analytics.”

There is more. Much more. But I’ll let you click into that above link and read it all for yourself.

Cataldi then doubled down, ostensibly calling on controlling owner John Middleton to fire his team’s general manager.

“How much more patient can he be with a general manager who has no record of success and who just oversaw a debacle reminiscent of 1964? Hey, John. The fans want that bleeping trophy back, too. Do something.”

The Phillies 38-year-old GM has not responded publicly to this point. However, on Wednesday morning another member of the team brain trust felt that he had to step up in response. And so manager Gabe Kapler called in to the radio station during Cataldi’s program and confronted the host.

“I thought that your article was disrespectful to a man (Klentak) that gives everything he has to bring a World Series championship to Philly.” 

The Phillies skipper then went on a lengthy description of the team’s overall performance, and what he saw as the overall improvements made, while also acknowledging the depth of disappointment in the season’s final 45 days. He stated in strong terms that Klentak has played a pivotal role in leading the club to that improvement.

“I take issue with what you said. I’m a compassionate, competitive man. But generating anger for the sake of anger means that you end up just flat-out wrong like you were in that piece.”

Kapler then questioned Cataldi’s very sanity, calling the host out for what the manager feels has been a pattern of angry coverage of the team in recent years. “You’re still doing the same thing, Angelo. So, you talked about the definition of insanity. I’d take a minute to look in the mirror about that.”