More from Duquette on Klentak

I just taped a phone interview with Orioles executive vice president Dan Duquette that will air later today on "The Mid-Atlantic Sports Report" on MASN, and he commented on Matt Klentak's decision to accept a job as assistant general manager with the Los Angeles Angels. I asked Duquette how big a loss it is for the front office, and he replied, "I don't know if I would term it a loss. It's certainly a transition, and Matt has done a good job from what people told me here. I enjoyed working with him for the short time that I was here and I wish him the best of luck. "The good news is we've got some capable people from within the organization who can handle a lot of the administrative duties, and I'm in the process of setting up my administration and bringing in some people who will help us improve our ballclub. I think it's probably the right time for everybody. "We have some people in-house here who have been helping me during the time that Matt was considering this new opportunity. There are some other people from outside the organization who would like to come and join the organization. I just have to figure out exactly what we need. The major league administration part we can handle from some people we have in-house." By the way, I've heard that the Orioles couldn't deny the Angels permission to interview Klentak. He was free to leave if he got an offer to his liking, though it sounds like his duties will be very similar to the ones he handled in Baltimore. Duquette still needs to hire a scouting director. "I've been working on scouting director," he said. "I interviewed several candidates this week and I'm going to try to get that resolved for the organization next week. That's obviously an important hire and I want to hire somebody that has strengths for evaluating pitching and also has a lot of good contacts at the amateur free agent level. There are some good candidates there,too, and I hope to have that position filled prior to the winter meetings."