Amaro should have known better than to lash out at fans

To explain what Ruben Amaro Jr. did wrong, to understand his biggest mistake in telling CSNPhilly.com on Monday that Phillies fans who "bitch and complain" about the team's rebuilding efforts "don't understand the game" and "don't understand the process," let's begin with what Sam Hinkie did right three months ago.

This was Feb. 20, the day after the NBA trade deadline, and Hinkie, the 76ers general manager, was holding a news conference, answering for his decisions to deal a pair of promising young players in Michael Carter-Williams and K.J. McDaniels - and about his overall plan to fix the Sixers. He was asked about the plan's short- and long-term viability.

The NBA had just agreed to a TV contract with ESPN and Turner Sports that in coming years would be a multi-billion-dollar bonanza for the league. Franchise revenues would rise. The salary cap would increase. So Sam, the pointed question went, what happens if the players whom the Sixers hoped to draft in 2015 and 2016 - the teenage prospects at the core of the plan - decide not to enter the NBA draft as soon as they're eligible? What if they wait until after the TV deal takes effect, when they could sign for more money? Wouldn't that jeopardize everything?

The question was pointed, all right, and its entire premise was inaccurate. The NBA has a rookie wage scale, and that scale will stay fixed even after the new TV deal begins. A prospective draftee has nothing to gain by waiting to turn pro. Hinkie, of course, knew this, and he could have buried the questioner in front of the entire press gallery and to who-knows-how-many people watching the news conference on TV. He could have turned that display of ignorance into fodder for a rant about fans, media, and basketball experts who "don't understand the game" and "don't understand the process." He could have done exactly what Amaro just did.

Only he didn't. He smiled and said he and the Sixers had taken all the necessary factors into consideration, and he moved on to the next question. Sam Hinkie has been in Philadelphia two years. Ruben Amaro was born here, grew up here, played major-league baseball here, and has worked as a Phillies executive here. Of the 50 years he's been alive, he's spent more than 40 of them here. He graduated from Stanford. He's a smart guy. Yet he couldn't avoid making what amounted to a rookie mistake: He failed to remember that he's not in a position to b---- about fans who b---- about his baseball team.

That's the heart of his problem now. That's why so many people who heard what Amaro said are upset, why he went on a 12-hour apology tour Tuesday - from WIP-FM (94.1) to WPEN-FM (97.5) to media members at Citi Field before the Phillies-Mets game to Comcast SportsNet.

On Monday, CSNPhilly.com's Jim Salisbury - formerly of The Inquirer, always a fair and thorough reporter - had asked Amaro about the progress of Aaron Nola and Zach Eflin, two of the Phillies' top pitching prospects. Amaro said the organization would be patient with Nola and Eflin, which is exactly what he should have said and exactly what the Phillies should be.

Then Salisbury noted that such patience "will not sit well with fans who want to see the Phillies be aggressive with their prospects," and Amaro pulled out a shovel and started digging.

"They don't understand the game," he said. "They don't understand the process. There's a process. And then they bitch and complain because we don't have a plan. There's a plan in place and we're sticking with the plan. We can't do what's best for the fan. We have to do what's best for the organization so the fan can reap the benefit of it later on. That's the truth."

Deep down, maybe Amaro believes that he's entitled to more latitude than he's gotten from Phillies fans, that the team's three division titles and 2009 World Series appearance over the first three seasons of his tenure as general manager should have earned him a kinder, gentler, longer grace period. And he'd be right if the Phillies' subsequent collapse weren't so predictable and preventable, if he and the team's ownership group and decision-makers hadn't held on too tightly to that brief period of greatness, if the Phillies hadn't wasted the 2013 and 2014 seasons in a laughable attempt to reload instead of beginning their rebuilding then.

A lot of people inside and outside Major League Baseball saw this train roaring down the tracks, but Amaro wasn't one of them, so it's understandable if fans find Amaro's preaching patience as off-putting as they find his petulant tone.

Look at Amaro's counterparts around town: Hinkie, Chip Kelly, Ron Hextall. Each has been far bolder and daring in implementing and carrying out a "plan." Each has sustained a significant measure of criticism for it. And each has been smart enough to hold his tongue, to refrain from lashing out publicly against even the most ridiculous objections. They haven't lost their cool the way Amaro lost his, and that lapse in self-control will only cost him more credibility.

This is Philadelphia. The unreasonable and impatient, you will always have with you. Ruben Amaro should know that by now. Hell, he should have learned it long ago.

@MikeSielski