Sam Fuld Named Phillies General Manager After Matt Klentak's Exit

The Philadelphia Phillies announced Tuesday they hired MLB outfielder Sam Fuld as their general manager.

Jim Salisbury of NBC Sports Philadelphia first broke the news.

Following the end of his playing career in 2017, Fuld took over as the Phillies' major league player information coordinator. The 39-year-old would succeed Matt Klentak and work under president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski.

Dombrowski's arrival signaled Philadelphia's priorities. The 64-year-old often has a short-term focus, be it signing marquee free agents and leveraging top prospects to land ready-made All-Stars. The strategy isn't totally sustainable but delivered results in his previous three stops. 

Philadelphia may have felt some level of pressure to promote Fuld. MLB Network's Jon Heyman reported in November that Fuld was a finalist for the Boston Red Sox's managerial vacancy. Sooner or later, an outside opportunity could have proven too good to pass up.

Now, Fuld gets to work alongside a proven front-office executive and gain valuable experience. He'll be well positioned to assume a larger role the moment Dombrowski moves on.

Philadelphia's front office boasts a healthy strategic contrast, too, between Fuld's more analytical approach and Dombrowski's traditional methods of team-building. The best-case scenario is a blending of the two, something akin to what the Los Angeles Dodgers are doing.

The hiring of Andrew Friedman as president of baseball operations in 2014 showed how the Dodgers wanted to embrace sabermetrics, but that hasn't stopped them from going after stars such as Mookie Betts and regularly running a high payroll.

Ideally, that's what lies ahead for the Phillies.