Kapler never managed to shed early image
as an organizational-chart buffer, Klentak would not immediately replace holdover manager and blunt baseball lifer Pete Mackanin. But when the Phillies inevitably faltered, Klentak spun to Gabe Kapler, a former player with front-office experience, though with only a handful of games as a minor-league manager. Kapler had sold Klentak on his commitment to filling out lineup cards based on up to three years’ worth of data. And Klentak had bought. Yet within hours, there had to be remorse.
Early in his introductory press conference, Kapler was badgered about his fitness blog, which in certain cases crashed through the firewall of social comfort. Clearly, the young general manager had not adequately vetted Kapler in the context of the Philadelphia market.
As it should have, that issue soon gave way to a more reasonable question: Could Kapler manage? With a three-year contract, he would have ample time to provide that answer. Yet Kapler did not make it through his first game without damaging evidence that he was not ready for the job. In the season-opener at Atlanta, he would hook Aaron Nola after 68 pitches and watch a 5-0 lead disintegrate into an 8-5 defeat. When, two days later,
he tried to turn to Hoby Milner for a third consecutive game only to find the reliever had not been adequately loose, Kapler’s reputation was hardened. So overmatched did his new manager appear that, before the ensuing series in New York, Klentak would feel obligated to issue history’s earliest vote of confidence for a manager.
Though he would come close a few times, even generating some mild manager of the year discussion midway through his first season, Kapler would never shed the image he’d provided in those earliest games. Nor did he do enough to try. Repeatedly, he would excuse failure, insisting his players were working hard. At times, he was right. But when he continued that rhetoric during a horrifying September standings retreat, he came off as smugly confident that he could tell Philadelphia fans not to believe what they knew they were seeing. To them, there can no more tragic a misreading of analytics.
So tough was that act to watch that, in the offseason, team president Andy MacPhail publicly warned Kapler that such unwarranted praise was a turn-off to the public. Yet Kapler would not change. And after one particularly damaging one-run loss, he brazenly touted the Phillies’ ninth-inning grit. The problem: Three Phillies hit in that ninth inning, and three struck out. Did he
really believe the customers were that easily bullied?
But that was Kapler’s way. In an effort to win support in his clubhouse, he would never openly criticize a player. Even during losing streaks, and occasionally when certain players were not exerting responsible effort, he would refuse to spread discipline. At one point, he would be caught snarling that he did not intend to act like Dallas Green. Since it was 2019, not 1980, he was right to make concessions to a new generation of professional player unlikely to respond to the threat of being benched, screamed at or kicked in the pants by a cowboy boot. But as far as the late Green once was on one end of the discipline scale, Kapler was just as distant on the other.
Had Kapler won championships, or at least won more games, he could have gotten away with all of that. But a two-year record of 161-163 in concert with his damaged public image would have resulted in ticket-sales catastrophe. So after thorough thought and investigation by managing partner John Middleton, Kapler was fired.
“We came into 2019 with very high hopes,” Kapler said, in a statement. “We fell short of those, and that responsibility lies with me. The next Phillies manager will inherit a team of talented, dedicated and committed
players.
“I’m looking forward to what the future brings,” he added, “and I know I’m a better leader and person for having had this opportunity.”
Gabe Kapler respected the city and thought he had the right plan to succeed. He was not the right manager for the Phillies in 2020, but eventually he will find another job, in a city that might better fit his image and approach.
Warned by MacPhail that a general manager only gets to pick so many of managers, Klentak will have made his second hire by then. If he reads the marketplace, he will have signed a veteran winner, one who knows the fans, their customs and their nuances. Mike Scioscia, the Springfield High grad, would be ideal. There are others. Joe Girardi. Joe Maddon. Dusty Baker.
“John, Andy and I will work diligently with others in our baseball operations department to find the right individual to build upon the existing foundation,” Klentak said in the release, “and bring a championship home to Philadelphia.”
It’s what the fans want to hear. With his time running out, it’s what Klentak must deliver.