Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-- --Orioles president Andy MacPhail has pointed the franchise toward the future with a large infusion of young on-field talent, so why should anyone be surprised that his new director of baseball operations is a twentysomething Ivy Leaguer with relatively little experience in baseball operations?
Matt Klentak is 27 years old and has spent the past four years working behind the scenes in Major League Baseball's Labor Relations Department. It's fairly obvious from his Dartmouth pedigree and his central office experience that he's a sharp, young numbers guy with both feet on the front office fast track, but the choice might say as much about MacPhail as it does about his new protege.
Since he arrived in the organization in June, MacPhail has been working to change the culture in the clubhouse and the Warehouse. He has committed to a radical rebuilding program and restructured the decision-making apparatus. Until yesterday, however, he was working largely with the same front office pieces he inherited when he got here.
The long-anticipated addition of his new first lieutenant might have some people scratching their heads, but the hire makes perfect sense when you step back and look at the big picture. It is consistent with the long view that MacPhail has adopted toward the renovation of the organization, and it is - on a more personal level - reflective of MacPhail's own experience as a front office boy wonder with the Minnesota Twins in the 1980s.
Remember, MacPhail was once the youngest general manager in baseball, and he celebrated the first of two unlikely World Series championships with the Twins when he was just 34. He knows as well as anyone that age is no barrier to baseball success, and he can see - along with the rest of us - that a generational and philosophical shift is taking place in the upper levels of baseball management.
The hiring of Klentak - whether MacPhail wants to acknowledge it - is a signal to the rest of the baseball operations department that it's time for everyone to start thinking outside the batter's box.
"I think he'll bring a different point of view, which every organization can use," MacPhail said.
Klentak played four years of college baseball and spent a year in the Colorado Rockies' baseball operations department before moving into the commissioner's office. He met MacPhail while he was crunching numbers for the ownership bargaining team during the 2006 labor negotiations.
Clearly, he is not short on self-confidence, if his interview with MacPhail or yesterday's conference call with the media are any indication.
"He asked me more questions than I asked him," MacPhail said.
Klentak said yesterday that that wasn't a display of hubris, just a result of his earlier relationship with MacPhail.
"I knew Andy well from our time negotiating the current collective bargaining agreement," he said. "I felt very comfortable with him. I just asked a lot of questions about the process, the goals of the organization and the goals of the front office. I wanted to make sure we were on the same page."
OK, that still might sound a little presumptuous, but Klentak impressed the people at MLB so much that he was becoming a commodity. If you're starting to envision another Theo Epstein, you're probably not alone. MacPhail clearly thinks this guy is going places.
The big question now is whether this hiring means some other members of the baseball operations team might be going to other places before long. Several key executives are entering the final year of their contracts, but MacPhail refused to speculate about the future makeup of the front office.
He wouldn't even concede that Klentak had moved into the No. 2 position, choosing instead to make his title equivalent to the other "directors" in the baseball operations department. Clearly, however, the new kid is in a position to evolve into a GM's role.
"There is some method to his title," MacPhail said. "It allows him to get exposed to all aspects of the organization."
Where that leaves executive vice president Mike Flanagan remains uncertain. He has retained his title and likely will focus his efforts on MacPhail's recent push to broaden organizational pitching depth.
The curious assortment of executive titles in the front office makes it difficult to sort out the organizational hierarchy, but that apparently is all right with MacPhail, who - for the moment, at least - doesn't see any need to establish a pecking order.
"I'm not a compartmentalized guy," MacPhail said. "With the Twins, it wasn't unusual to see [manager] Tom Kelly with a rake or pulling the tarp. We all pitched in to help the team."
peter.schmuck@baltsun.com
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