MILWAUKEE -- Matt Arnold put thousands of miles on his grandfather’s 1977 Chevy Cheyenne to begin a journey that led to Thursday, when he took the reins of a Major League baseball team.

Arnold, 43, was elevated to the Brewers’ top baseball operations position when David Stearns stepped down from his role of president of baseball operations and assumed an advisory role. That made Arnold, who has been in Milwaukee’s front office since 2015 with the title of senior vice president and general manager since '20, to the pinnacle of a front office career that spans more than two decades.

“I was a mediocre player at best,” Arnold said earlier this year during a discussion for the Brewers Unfiltered podcast. “I quickly realized I wasn’t going to be able to stay on the field. I’m a slow twitch guy in general. Especially as the guys get bigger and more physical, it wasn’t going to work. But I tried as hard as I could. I started figuring out, ‘Hey, there’s another pathway here potentially to do some stuff in the front office.’ But I didn’t even know what that was.”

Arnold, born in Oxnard, Calif., outside Los Angeles, was working toward his economics degree at the University of California-Santa Barbara when he scored a sit-down with then-Angels farm director Tony Reagins to talk about a career in baseball. Reagins asked Arnold what exactly he wanted to specialize in. Arnold didn’t have an answer.

“I didn’t even know there were different verticals within the baseball operations department,” Arnold said. “I was like, ‘I will do anything.’”

His first job was in the Dodgers’ front office, mostly on the business side. Every day, Arnold commuted 100 miles each way between Santa Barbara and Dodger Stadium in his grandfather’s old truck to shuttle players around, interact with fans for in-game scoreboard features and generally help wherever needed. 

“I just wanted to be around,” Arnold said. “I wanted to be a part of this. As you’re around, you begin to learn a little bit more about the nuance of the different departments and what they are about. I began to set my sights on what this could look like. And look, I’m humble enough that I did not see this as a possibility. I realize the odds of what it takes to be here. I’m super fortunate that people believed in me.”

Arnold beat the odds, spinning the Dodgers experience into a job with a 2002 Rangers team replete with longtime baseball men. His influences in Texas included executives John Hart, Jon Daniels and Dan O’Brien, and coaches Terry Francona, Orel Hershiser and Rudy Jaramillo.

Arnold went to the Winter Meetings that December and slept on the floor of Daniels’ hotel room while interviewing with clubs, landing a full-time job with the Reds as assistant director of pro scouting. After nearly five years in that position, he moved to the Rays as a pro scout and then director of pro scouting, working under Andrew Friedman and Matt Silverman on everything from contract negotiations to player acquisitions to player evaluations at all levels of the organization.

In October 2015, Stearns made Arnold, by this point a married father of two, his first front office hire in Milwaukee.

“One of the reasons I believe now is the right time is because I believe the organization is particularly well positioned to have this transition,” Stearns said while passing the baton. “Matt is a premier executive. He has declined multiple outside opportunities to remain committed to the Brewers. He is committed to Milwaukee. He has earned this opportunity and I'm very confident the organization is in great hands.”

Arnold spent time Wednesday night with manager Craig Counsell and expects no changes to the Major League staff. Still, Arnold faces immediate challenges. The Brewers have 18 players eligible for arbitration, including All-Star pitchers Corbin Burnes, Brandon Woodruff and Devin Williams and shortstop Willy Adames.

Burnes, Woodruff and Adames, plus others like pitcher Eric Lauer and first baseman Rowdy Tellez, are all two years shy of free agency.

“The way I look at it is you have a pilot and a co-pilot, and now the co-pilot is sliding over to the lead pilot’s seat. He knows how to fly the plane,” Brewers principal owner Mark Attanasio said. “I’m excited to see what he brings, because while he definitely had significant input into what David finally approved, I wasn’t really privy -- they have a whole group in baseball ops. They have a significant R&D group. I don’t know how the sausage is made, I just know it was pretty good.”

Asked where on his list of priorities he’d put exploring extensions with some of those players, Arnold said, “Certainly high. We have a lot of good players here who we’d like to try to maintain here for a long time. Obviously, we’re at the outset of this so I want to talk with the team about how they feel and obviously, those are two-way conversations.”

Under Stearns, the Brewers had a clear philosophy of how to win a World Series in a small market: Make the playoffs as many years as possible while avoiding the sort of long rebuild that has swallowed up some other NL Central competitors. That sometimes forced making unpopular decisions, like trading closer Josh Hader in August for a package that included prospects to stock the farm system.

Arnold, who comes from a player development background, was asked whether he would follow the same philosophy.

“I think that’s a real conversation I think I need to have with Mark,” Arnold said. “And also, where we are as an organizational standpoint with the assets that we have, what we need to do over the next several years to remain competitive here. Look, that could take a whole different bunch of pathways and sometimes you’re presented with things that you didn’t expect to see happen. … We just need to be opportunistic and ultimately, I think that will lead us to a World Series.”

Said Attanasio: “When I spoke to Matt yesterday, I said, 'Listen, Matt, you’re going to get to put your stamp on this.' We’re going to have open dialogue. Matt’s a neighbor of Craig’s and I know they can talk to each other as neighbors. ... I wanted to make sure we had the same kind of good communication between Craig, Matt and me that we’ve always had, and I expect we will since Matt’s been here for seven years.”

Arnold is now in charge of that effort.

“I’ve worn a lot of hats in the game,” Arnold said. “I feel like I'm ready for this.”