Royals' Arbuckle: Scouting, development build winners
The Phillies had an opportunity to bring an assistant general manager with a strong scouting and player development background home from Kansas City last month.
The Phillies had an opportunity to bring an assistant general manager with a strong scouting and player development background home from Kansas City last month.
They declined to do so, opting instead to hire Matt Klentak as their 11th general manager.
J.J. Picollo, a Cherry Hill native who holds the title of assistant GM of player personnel, remained with the Royals and celebrated a World Series title Tuesday during a parade through downtown Kansas City.
It was seven years ago that the Phillies opted for Ruben Amaro Jr. over Mike Arbuckle. It was as clear then as it is now that Arbuckle was the assistant to general manager Pat Gillick with the more appealing scouting and player development background.
For whatever reason, the Phillies went with Amaro. Arbuckle, one of the essential architects of the 2008 Phillies World Series title, is OK with that. He was part of that parade through Kansas City, too, after the Royals won their second World Series in franchise history Monday in New York. A special assistant to Royals general manager Dayton Moore, Arbuckle drove to work Wednesday morning for a team meeting to map out the Royals' plans for their 2016 bid to repeat as champions.
During that drive, Arbuckle confirmed that Picollo interviewed for the job as Phillies general manager and at one point he even thought the Cherry Hill West High graduate was a front-runner. John Middleton, the voice of Phillies ownership, may have altered the course with his desire to enhance the team's analytics operation.
"I think John's vision of a GM was very clear," Arbuckle said. "I'll be tactful here. The clubs who have sustained success have done it through scouting and development. Analytics has to be a part of it. We have it here in Kansas City. But it's not an end-all. There are a number of analytic guys who have not succeeded. To view that as the only way to go about it, I'm not sure is a realistic view."
Arbuckle is biased but not wrong in his view that scouting and development remain the core instruments for putting together a consistent contender. Patience is required, too, and he hopes that Klentak and new Phillies president Andy MacPhail are given the time needed to turn things around. He has great respect for MacPhail and has been impressed during his brief encounters with Klentak.
"What people have to understand is that it does require time," Arbuckle said. "It is eight to nine years to really get competitive and stay competitive. It took basically Dayton the same amount of time to get things where they are now, that it took us to get the Phillies to the position they were in starting around 2003.
"The key was the same here as it was with the Phillies and as it was when I was in Atlanta. You have to sign and develop your own core players. It's important to have guys who have gone through the minor leagues together and won together. They take those long bus rides, survive on minor-league meal money and it brings players together."
Those trials and tribulations cannot be quantified with algorithms, but they do create a bond that helps a group cause. Arbuckle also believes winning on the way up is important.
"Yeah, I do," he said. "I don't mean you have to win a pennant. Win more than you lose. It helps players understand what it takes to win. Players work harder and have more fun when they feel like they come to the park every day with a chance to win."
One example of great scouting that helped lead to the Royals' 2015 title was a bond between Jim Fregosi Jr. and reliever Ryan Madson. Fregosi, now a special assistant to Dayton, signed Madson after the Phillies drafted him in the ninth round in 1998 and the two men never lost touch. That was true even after Madson had not thrown a pitch in the big leagues since leaving the Phillies after the 2011 season.
"Jimmy called and said, 'Ryan Madson is throwing again and I think he's worth keeping an eye on,' " Arbuckle said. "They stayed in touch and Jimmy called back a month later and said, 'He's way better now than a month ago. I think we need to sign him.' "
Madson, with a career-low 2.13 earned run average in 68 appearances, became a vital part of the best bullpen in the American League.
Arbuckle, 65, knows the door has closed on his opportunity to become a general manager and he's OK with that. He said occasionally he wonders what it would have been like if he had gotten the job that went to Amaro. There's no way to know if he would have done it better, but you can be sure he would have done it differently.
In his view, scouting and development mean more than anything when trying to put together a team that can win big and over the long haul. The Royals, he believes, just proved his point.
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