Philadelphia Phillies: The hot seat getting hotter for Matt Klentak

Philadelphia Phillies general manager Matt Klentak could be in trouble after a disappointing 2020

As the 2020 season approaches its conclusion, it’s hard to imagine a general manager on a hotter seat than Philadelphia’s Matt Klentak.

All the elements that tend to combine to spell doom for a GM are aligning against the Philadelphia Phillies’ front office boss.

Klentak is completing the fifth year of his oversight of the Phillies front office. The Phils have not had a winning record under Klentak’s direction, and they are 325-369 .468 following Tuesday’s doubleheader defeat to the Washington Senators.

Klentak hired a new field manager – Joe Girardi – last season, and since field managers always get a one-year pass on blame, Klentak is the next exec in the line of fire.

Phillies ownership has jacked payroll substantially at Klentak’s behest. The 40-man Competitive Balance payroll – the key apples-to-apples measurement in this Covid-disrupted season – is $207 million. That’s a 100 percent increase since Klentak was hired following the 2015 season.

When the boss  gives you more money, he generally expects accountability for what becomes of it.

Klentak is the guy who signed up Bryce Harper and Jake Arrieta and Andrew McCutchen. Those three alone cost $435 million, with Harper and the Phils committed to one another through 2031. To date the sum total of their contributions to the team’s 2020 accomplishments – as measured by Wins Above Average – is 0.0.

In the first two seasons of his $330 million deal, Harper has batted .260 and .247, albeit with above-average on base numbers.

Beyond that, Klentak is taking serious fire in Philadelphia for what he did and did not do to bolster the team’s chances both prior to the season’s start and during the trade deadline. Most of that criticism focuses on the team’s historically bad bullpen.

Collectively, the pen leads the NL in both save opportunities (25) and blown saves (14), a very toxic combination indeed. As has been widely noted, the Phillies’ bullpen ERA is second worst in baseball history behind only the 1930 Phillies.

It’s not as if Klentak failed to recognize the problem or ignored it. On Aug. 21 he traded minor league prospect Connor Seabold and starter Nick Pivetta to the Boston Red Sox for a pair of veteran bullpen arms, Brandon Workman and Heath Hembree. That same day he sent the Yankees a minor leaguer in exchange for reliever David Hale.

The problem is that collecting bullpen arms is chancy on a dice roll level. Performance can come and go on a whim. Workman had a career 3.75 ERA with Boston but he is 1-4 in Philadelphia with a 6.92 ERA in 14 appearances; Hembree has a 12.54 ERA in 11 appearances for the Phils, and Hale has allowed five runs and 16 hits in six appearances spanning 11 innings.

Complicating Klentak’s situation is his ongoing ability to actually assess talent, probably the most important single thing a GM can do. Since the conclusion of the 2019 season, the various personnel moves made by Klentak have damaged the Phillies’ standing by 1.5 games as measured by Wins Above Average. That means he has taken a team that would stand 29-27 if he had merely done nothing and turned it into its current 27-29 self.

That’s not an aberration. Since assuming charge prior to the 2016 season, the average short-term impact on Philadelphia Phillies’ fortunes of all of Klentak’s personnel decisions has been -2.76 games. In only one of Klentak’s five years – 2019 – has he actually improved the team as measured by the Wins Above Average impact of his short-term personnel decisions.

The best thing Klentak has going for him is that contract, which he and team president Andy MacPhail signed prior to the 2020 season. It extends his deal for three years through the 2022 season.

So if MacPhail and team president David Montgomery want to make a change, they will be obligated to Klentak for both the 2021 and 2022 seasons.

But unless their assessment of the 2020 season gives their GM a satisfactory grade, they may be willing to pay that price.