Philadelphia Phillies: Matt Klentak should be fired immediately

There is zero excuse for the Philadelphia Phillies to keep GM Matt Klentak.

8 out of 15 teams. That’s who qualified for the playoffs in the National League this season. And, disgustingly but unfortunately not surprisingly, the Philadelphia Phillies couldn’t even crack that not-so-illustrious group during a 60-game season that should have benefitted them more so than a standard 162-game campaign. There is plenty of blame to pass around, but the brunt of it should fall swiftly and violently on the head of General Manager Matt Klentak, who absolutely must be fired as soon as possible after overseeing the team through another non-winning season.

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Imagine being in a job where you couldn’t produce above average results even one time in five years. That’s the feat that Klentak has pulled off in half a decade of being top dog for the Phils. The club hasn’t posted any over-.500 finishes, which has gone hand in hand with their failure to even finish the year with a record in the top half of Major League Baseball, let alone make a playoff appearance.

Speaking of those playoffs, Klentak’s five-year tenure has now extended the Phillies’ postseason drought to nine straight years, which is the second-longest in all of baseball. Thanks, Mariners. With results like these, how could anyone inside or outside the organization justify bringing this butcher back for any more?

Nobody can use the excuse of 2020 being a “strange season” and therefore unfit to base any decisions on. Because when you get beat out by teams like the Marlins, who have far less than half your payroll, it’s clear that the problems run so deep that things have to change.

Firing Klentak won’t be an immediate cure for what ails the Philadelphia Phillies, but nobody else they dig up could possibly be so ineffective. Even his objectively good moves have come with caveats, like Klentak’s recent asinine comments where he seemed content with getting only two years out of J.T. Realmuto when the team traded for him. As for the bad moves…well, I’ll let Hall of Fame writer Jayson Stark sum it up with this…

That’s the bullpen that Matt Klentak constructed for a team that, he told us with a straight face, he thought could compete for a division title and actually be a factor in the playoffs. What a disgrace. Still, it goes beyond the bullpen.

Klentak assembled an impressive lineup on paper, but one that was exposed when the team had to dig into its bench. There was simply no depth on this club. They never received the kind of contributions that good and successful teams need from all parts of their lineup. How many times did the Philadelphia Phillies get beaten by the depth of other teams this season? Far too many, especially in a two-month sprint.

And as for the organizational pipeline, forget it. The minor league cupboard was pretty bare even before the promotion of top prospect Alec Bohm (whom Klentak should get no credit for drafting, because he was an obvious pick that anyone could have made). Klentak’s inability to build anything promising, and trading away a lot of what he did manage to assemble, has this team on a frightening course for years to come.

Along with his mentor, shadowy figure Andy MacPhail, Klentak has put the Phillies in a worse position than they were five years ago following the Ryne Sandberg debacle. It wasn’t an easy trick to pull off but, by God, he did it.

Matt Klentak needs to be fired right now for the damage he has inflicted on this team for several years, but also because of the future calamities he might cause if left to sit in the GM’s seat one minute longer. It’s overdue, but it would at least finally be a step in the right direction for the Phillies if they want to avoid having Citizens Bank Park look almost as empty in future years as it was during 2020.

It appears that we’re in the dark ages again for the Philadelphia Phillies, with the problem being that we never really emerged from the last one. And Matt Klentak is the top reason for all of it. Time to go. Right now.