On Monday, the non-player personnel group of the Milwaukee Brewers underwent a dramatic transformation that captured the attention of the whole baseball community the moment it was revealed:
Matt Klentak received a raise. He presently serves as the general manager’s executive advisor.
All things considered, it’s a positive move for the former Phillies general manager, even though Klentak’s promotion—along with those of three other front office personnel who were just named assistant general managers—didn’t make as much news as Craig Counsell’s managerial transfer from Milwaukee to Chicago. Since January 2022, Klentak has supported general manager Matt Arnold as a special assistant. Up until September, when Stearns left to join the New York Mets, he also served as special assistant to David Stearns, president of baseball operations.
Klentak’s tenure in Philadelphia did not come to an end when he resigned as general manager after the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, during which the Phillies finished below.500 and missed the playoffs for the sixth consecutive year. Before joining the Brewers in early 2022, he was employed by the Phillies front office as a “strategy development officer.”
The Phillies stint was a “mixed bag,” and it ended without much fanfare. Klentak deserves credit for making a few smart decisions that brought some of the team’s current core to Philadelphia, even though he did not necessarily expedite the rebuild as much as he and the team had planned. Klentak took over a badly run organization at the lowest point of its rebuild era. Whether you give Klentak some credit for the Bryce Harper signing, he made some other smart choices as well. He signed J.T. Realmuto in a deal that now seems like a value, and his big wager on Zack Wheeler paid off in the form of what now appears to be one of the best free-agent contracts in MLB history.
But Klentak didn’t see tangible results in Philadelphia quickly enough; baseball is a results-driven sport. Milwaukee has become his new home, and judging by the news released on Monday, the collaboration appears to be working well.