PHILADELPHIA _ The Phillies demoted general manager Matt Klentak on Saturday after he failed to build a winning team in five seasons despite carrying one of baseball's highest payrolls in recent years. He will be assigned to another position in the organization.
Ned Rice will serve as the interim general manager.
John Middleton's decision to demote Klentak came just 20 months after the team's managing partner compared the general manager to Hall of Famers Branch Rickey and Pat Gillick. Middleton called Klentak one of baseball's elite general managers after he acquired five former All-Stars before the 2019 season.
And now Middleton will begin his search to hire the 12th general manager in franchise history. The Phillies have a world-champion manager, a superstar right fielder, and an ownership group that has shown eagerness in recent winters to spend in free agency.
The Phillies roster is flawed, but the new GM will inherit the foundation of a postseason contender. The GM will also need to decide if the team can re-sign free agents to-be J.T. Realmuto and Didi Gregorius and take a serious look at the minor league system, which was ranked poorly under Klentak's watch despite the Phillies consistently holding high draft picks.
Klentak was hired in December of 2015 to help refresh a front office that had been passed by in baseball's analytical revolution and to return the franchise to the winning they grew accustomed to five years earlier. Under Klentak, the team greatly expanded its reliance on analytics and modern technologies, but the postseason still remained out of reach.
The Phillies committed more than $700 million to free agents in the last three offseasons but finished with a combined winning percentage of .492 from 2018-2020. They finished this season four games below .500, missed the playoffs by a game, and were excluded from a postseason field that was expanded to eight teams.
Klentak, since he was hired, often shied away from placing a timetable on when the Phillies would contend again but he said before this season that it was "time to win." When the team failed to win, the general manager entered the crosshairs.
The team was plagued by the worst major league bullpen in 90 years, a unit that Klentak all but neglected last offseason. He traded in August to add two relievers from Boston, but Brandon Workman and Heath Hembree struggled so mightily that the Phillies may have made the playoffs if they just didn't make that trade.
In the summer of 2008, Pat Gillick made a few minor trades to land starting pitcher Joe Blanton, reliever Scott Eyre, and pinch-hitter Matt Stairs. That fall, all three players played a major part in the team's World Series victory. Gillick won his third World Series and retired that offseason. He was one of baseball's elite general managers.
Gillick might not have added a slew of former All-Stars before that season, but he showed that he was an elite general manager. And he did not need the team's owner to tell anyone that he was. The Phillies, in their search for their next architect, will hope to find someone who proves to live up to the billing.
