Inside the Phillies: Amaro's team performed on deadline

SAN FRANCISCO - Many fascinating questions surrounded the Phillies last week: Would they trade for Roy Halladay? Or bolster the bench and bullpen? Was another pitcher on their radar? But one of the most interesting and essential mysteries was: What kind of general manager is Ruben Amaro Jr.?

As the Blue Jays set a daunting price for Halladay, and negotiations ensued, one of the main variables was Amaro himself. Though he had served for just over seven years as an assistant general manager under Ed Wade and Pat Gillick, Amaro had never been the decider, and we didn't know what his style would be. Would he adopt a measured approach and retain the top prospects Toronto requested? Or would he charge toward a bold and aggressive move, whatever the ramifications?

When it was over, we learned that Amaro had managed his first deadline gracefully. Roy Halladay did not become a Phillie. Cliff Lee did, and the Phils retained all their top prospects and J.A. Happ. Amaro simultaneously made a dramatic deal and preserved his organization's future. And what did the new GM show the world? That he can remain calm despite hysteria around him, listen to input from a carefully chosen inner circle, manage disagreement among his lieutenants, and focus on multiple options simultaneously.

Interviews with several top Phillies executives with direct knowledge of this past week's process revealed a busy but mostly calm Amaro, a man not overwhelmed by his new responsibilities. It helped that he trusted his top men, who worked in an atmosphere of mutual respect. Who were these guys, huddled in an Arizona hotel room last week, mulling decisions that would affect the future of their organization?

When Amaro was chosen last winter over former assistant general manager Mike Arbuckle to succeed Gillick as GM, he assembled the management team that traveled with him to Phoenix and San Francisco last week. He began by retaining Mike Ondo, the pro scouting director, and assistant GM Chuck LaMar, who oversees the farm system.

Ondo, a former catcher at the University of Scranton, began as a young intern under Wade around the time Amaro retired as a player and joined the front office in the late 1990s. As he and Amaro learned the nuances of player development from Wade, they bonded. Ondo eventually came to oversee the pro scouting department and provided a unique perspective for Amaro during trade deliberations, that of a friend. Ondo knows Amaro well and has his full trust, important in a business of high turnover and sometimes ambitious underlings.

LaMar is in his second season with the team after a decade as founding GM of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Though some of LaMar's moves with that team were questionable, he drafted or acquired many of the players who lifted the Rays out of perennial punch line status to American League champions last year. Of the five men in the trade-deadline situation room last week - Amaro, LaMar, Ondo, and assistant GMs Scott Proefrock and Benny Looper - LaMar and Amaro are the most fiery and excitable, prone to argue their opinions with passion, said one executive.

They are balanced by Proefrock and Looper. Proefrock has worked in Pittsburgh, Atlanta, Tampa Bay, and Baltimore. For years, he and Amaro were counterparts, assistant GMs in their 30s and 40s serving different teams. Proefrock's specialty is a deep understanding of arcane baseball rules and contracts. Amaro appreciated that skill set, and was always impressed by Proefrock's professionalism and preparedness.

He hired Proefrock in November, along with Looper, who had worked with Gillick in Seattle. Looper was instrumental in Amaro's first major move, the signing of free agent Raul Ibanez. Looper and Gillick had developed a relationship with Ibanez in Seattle, and Looper helped to convince both sides that the outfielder should join the Phillies.

Those five men began working together last winter, and quickly developed a productive chemistry. Amaro uses the word integrity when describing his top aides, and the assistants uniformly compliment Amaro for fostering a productive dialogue and listening respectfully to dissenting opinions. Though the general manager is naturally "hot-tempered," as one executive described him, "when he puts on his GM hat, he checks that at the door."

The work of his inner circle was bolstered last week by several traveling advisers: top scout Charley Kerfeld, whom Amaro recently trusted to watch both Pedro Martinez and Lee pitch before the team acquired them; Gillick, the GM from 2006 to 2008 who scouted Halladay in Toronto last month; and former Phils manager Dallas Green all serve important roles.

The process last week was not without its small bumps. Executives later acknowledged that some in the front office favored Halladay and some preferred acquiring Lee, though all were happy with the final deal. Amaro guarded every morsel of information with excessive secrecy, and then complained that the media - and therefore the public - were misinformed. And despite a professed openness to all perspectives, the front office is largely uninterested in the statistical innovations that have helped teams such as Boston and Tampa Bay succeed in recent years.

But Amaro and the group he assembled for just such a moment as they encountered - deadline approaching, major decisions to make, this and future seasons simultaneously on the line - were impressive in passing their first major test.