Phillies officially hire Brian Barber as scouting director

A Phillies press release Tuesday afternoon confirmed that the team has hired former New York Yankees national crosschecker Brian Barber to be the new scouting director.

The Phillies interest in Barber was first mentioned last week by NBC Sports Philadelphia’s Jim Salisbury among a list of several other candidates. He emerged as the Phillies preferred option Saturday morning as reported by Salisbury, and later that day RADIO.COM‘s Jon Heyman reported that the team had offered him the position.

Barber, 46, pitched in the major leagues for four seasons with the St. Louis Cardinals (1995-1996) and the Kansas City Royals (1998-1999). He joined the Yankees in 2002 and spent the last 18 years there as an area scout (2002-2006), East Coast crosschecker (2006-2011), and most recently, a national crosschecker (2012-2019).

Barber played a key role in the Yankees decision to draft two-time All-Star Aaron Judge, according to Sweeny Murti of WFAN. The Phillies have developed a dearth of quality players in their farm system over the last decade, and hiring Barber could be a step in the right direction to fix this persistent issue.

On the hiring of Barber, Phillies general manager Matt Klentak said, “We are pleased to announce the hiring of Brian Barber as our new director of amateur scouting. Brian has an extensive history in baseball, both as a player and more recently as a talent evaluator, and we are thrilled to welcome him to Philadelphia.”

The position had been vacant since Sept. 3, when previous scouting director Johnny Almarez stepped down and took on a smaller role within the organization. Almarez became the director in October of 2014 and oversaw five amateur drafts with the team.

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