DAVID MAIALETTI / Staff photographer
Ruben Amaro stayed calm as the trade deadline approached.
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DOWNSTAIRS, the manager will be scheming.
Charlie Manuel will be making unorthodox pitching decisions that could completely blow up on him, maybe using J.A. Happ and Joe Blanton as relief pitchers in Game 1 of the playoffs against Colorado and then starting them later on, maybe using Antonio Bastardo (he of the 23 2/3 career innings pitched) in a huge spot in a postseason game.
Upstairs, the general manager will be squirming. It is what Ruben Amaro Jr. and his brethren do in October. The outcome is out of their hands, out of their reach. They watch now, their part done.
Manuel will be putting himself out there, knowingly and willingly exposing his flanks to all manner of second-guessing - especially if the Happ thing were to blow up. It is the same thing Amaro did at the trade deadline when he acquired Cliff Lee and Ben Francisco from Cleveland instead of gutting his farm system to get Roy Halladay from Toronto. Amaro put himself way out there, and he knew it and he didn't care.
And, now, his acquisition will be starting Game 1 of the playoffs.
"You're only as good as your last trade," Amaro said, sitting in the dugout during the Phillies' workout yesterday. "I don't know. I tell you what - I trust the people who work with me, I always have, and I hope that they know that and understand that. I believe in the guys who are my eyes and ears, the [Charley] Kerfelds and [Gordon] Lakeys, all three of the assistant GMs, and Pat [Gillick] and Dallas [Green]. They're just good baseball people. Having their support makes life a lot easier."
Many of them were assembled in a hotel in Arizona as the trade deadline approached in July. It was Amaro's first trade deadline as the boss. He had been through it many times as the assistant GM, seen things fall through before. He had seen one of his former bosses, Ed Wade, absolutely tortured by the fan base on the morning after the deadline - more than once. He knew the territory. He looks back on it now with some clarity.
"I was a lot more calm than I thought I would be, under the circumstances, just because I've been on the roller-coaster ride before of trying to make a deal and then having it dashed upon the rocks," Amaro said.
"What I learned is that there are a lot of ebbs and flows, even in the last 24 hours leading up to the deadline. Some things go away. Some things pop up. I consider myself a glass half-full guy, so I was hopeful that we could get something done. I wasn't overconfident by any means. I think I had some patience, which I typically don't exude.
"There was really no panic in the room. We had all of our guys there in Arizona and there really wasn't any panic. They were just going about their business."
The Blue Jays wanted a haul of prospects, presumably led by Kyle Drabek and Domonic Brown; Amaro still won't part with the exact list of names. They wanted a bunch and they were not budging. There was enormous pressure to do something. There was much talk about a limited window with the best nucleus in the history of the franchise. Amaro heard it all. He likely agreed with some of it, too.
"I would walk the streets prior to that time," he said. "We're talking 10 days before, a week before we went on the road. People would talk to me and it was split about 60-40. Sixty percent of the people would tell me to get Halladay at all costs. Forty percent of the fans, pretty knowledgeable people here, would say, 'Don't trade Drabek, don't trade Brown, don't mortgage the future, the team is good enough.'
"Was Halladay the sexiest name? Was he the most accomplished pitcher who was available? Probably. But under the circumstances, we just felt like this was the best route to take.
"We were really working kind of parallel paths. I had talked to [Cleveland GM] Mark Shapiro a long time prior, and he indicated that he probably would not be interested in moving a guy, that if he got to that point, we would have discussions. But there was that, and we were looking at the bullpen, too. We had more than two or three balls in the air, maybe four or five balls in the air."
Still, though, an enormous amount of organizational energy had been expended on the possibility of Halladay. His name was on the lips of every fan in the region and every commentator on ESPN. There was enormous heat on Amaro to go all-in but, at some point, the decision was made to pursue Lee instead.
"The decision was made in a bigger meeting [in Arizona]," he said. "I had thought about it a lot over the nights prior. You just felt like that this, for all intents and purposes, was going to be the best thing for us today and the best thing for us tomorrow.
"I am very concerned about where we go after 2009. We could go three-and-out here. We could go all the way. The fact of the matter is, you want to put together the best team to compete and contend today, but you also have to have an eye for what will happen later on. Our core players are not going to get any younger and we are going to need people to take their place in 3 or 4 years."
It is an easier thing to say, given where Amaro sat yesterday - his work done, his team in the playoffs again. Still, as they all know, only now does the real scorekeeping begin.
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