Phillies' Ruben Amaro Has Roy-al Touch

On the day he may have secured the National League for his team for the third consecutive year -- a feat that hasn't been done since the Cardinals of the '40s -- the most interesting general manager in baseball celebrates '80s Retro Night at the ballpark looking like Gordon Gekko.

Meet Ruben Amaro.

He collects aces.

While the Braves cling to a shrinking lead in the East and the Reds and Cards slug it out in the Central and the Padres and Giants pitch the story of the West, the suddenly Roy-buttressed Phillies have become the most dangerous team in the NL. That's because, as tweak week for contenders closes on Saturday with the non-waiver trading deadline, this second-year GM turns over a pair of Roys for the stretch run.

Bullets, they call them at the other World Series.

With Roy Oswalt now the club's number-three starter, only Roy Hobbs is missing.

After a pause for East Coast cause and a glowing endorsement from friend and Phillies closer Brad Lidge, the country boy right-hander waived his no-trade clause, agreed to a mutual option for 2012 and ratified the deal eliciting a cease-tweet on the subject of if and where he'd go.

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Roy Oswalt joins Roy Halladay and lefty Cole Hamels to create arguably baseball's best 1-2-3 punch. Amaro's White Whale, Halladay has been literally perfect in his first season in Philadelphia. He's second in the league ERA (2.21), second in strikeouts (149), first in innings pitched (171), first in complete games (eight), first in shutouts (three) and his strikeout-walk ratio is 149-20. By the way, he also threw that perfect game against the Marlins.

Meanwhile, Hamels should easily be in the teens in wins with any consistent run support. Having added an effective cutter to a repertoire that includes one of the best changes around, he looks like the 2008 postseason MVP after a down season last year.

The Giants (Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain and Barry Zito), Cardinals (Adam Wainwright, Cris Carpenter and rookie Jaime Garcia), Red Sox (Josh Beckett, Jon Lester and John Lackey) and Yankees (C.C. Sabathia, Andy Pettitte and A.J. Burnett) all could surely bicker over best trios, but doesn't Oswalt as a No. 3 end it?

All the talk about his back and cortisone shots, his own talk about retirement, a 6-12 record in 2010 and a less-than-dominant 2009 have people wondering if he's starting to slip. But his 3.42 ERA in 20 starts and 120 strikeouts speak otherwise. Oswalt has received the least offensive support of any pitcher in the game this year, with the anemic Astros having scored 3.14 runs per game in his starts. And let's be real. Pitching for a really, really bad team over and over takes its toll on the best competitors.

"Oh, he's in the prime of his career. He's still very much what you call a real ace."
- Charlie Manuel
on Roy Oswalt His stuff still pops and he's only 32.

"Oh, he's in the prime of his career," said a giddy Charlie Manuel, the Phillies' skipper. "He's still very much what you call a real ace."

He's also what you call 70-24 with a 3.08 ERA over his career in the second half.

"Roy is a competitor," Amaro said. "I just feel fortunate to get this done. Ownership gave me the support to do this. We're trying to get back to the World Series and win it."

Let's recap. In the past 12 months, Amaro has traded for Cliff Lee, Halladay and Oswalt, who go down as three of the top -- What? Five, six, seven? -- starters in the game over the past five, six, seven years. Now, after acquiring Lee at the deadline last July, Amaro traded the lefty in a highly criticized move for prospects that have thus far languished the same day that he landed Halladay.

Even now, the cry is that he wouldn't have needed Oswalt had he kept Lee, who was under contract for 2010 at a palatable $9 million. It has been a source of angst for the Phillies, only heightening when the club fell further behind the Braves and the need for another starter became more apparent.

"I stopped listening to any conversation that began [with Cliff Lee]," Amaro said, only half-kidding.

The team has offered contradicting stories on Lee. Amaro continued to say the farm system needed to be replenished while chairman David Montgomery said that finances were a consideration as the payroll swelled to roughly $140 million.



Here's how it went down: Long a fan of Halladay, Amaro finally got him at the winter meetings from Toronto after Lee turned down a longterm contract offer. He tried to move Joe Blanton -- whom the team had to tender right after the World Series or potentially lose him and not receive compensation -- but couldn't. (In January, the Phillies signed Blanton to extension, a deal that looks iffy because he hasn't been the innings-eater he has been in the past.)

Stuck payroll-wise, the club felt it could still win with Halladay and use the remaining budget to address other needs of the team. Sources familiar with the brass' thinking said they kept one eye on the trading deadline and specifically reacquiring Lee if the team needed pitching help.

When Lee went to Texas, Amaro turned to his former boss, Ed Wade, the Astros GM.



"I have a great deal of respect for Ed," Amaro said. "We're very good friends. You have to have a relationship with the other GM to pull these things off. He's comfortable with how I go about my business and he's very straightforward. He's very honest and that made for a good fit."

Contrary to some strat-o-maticists' beliefs, it's actually hard to land that caliber of pitcher three times. Amaro makes it seem like there is an ace tree in that park in the shadows of Citizens Bank Park.

Amaro paid with a lot of prospects from a bountiful farm system but was still able to protect phenom Domonic Brown, a fleet, five-tool outfielder whose lefty-swing reminds you of a young Darryl Strawberry. He made his debut earlier this week and went 2-for-3 with a double.

In the end, Amaro acquired Oswalt for J.A. Happ, a decent lefty who projects to be a back rotation starter and who missed 2 1/2 months with an elbow injury, and two low-level prospects. Plus the Astros are giving Philadelphia $11 million to put toward Oswalt's salary of $16 million in 2011. Lee, mind you, would have left via free agency after this season.

"It's a testament to what we've built here talent-wise from down below," Amaro said. "This was a tougher deal. We had to persuade Roy to come here."

"I don't think I needed to persuade him a ton," Lidge added. "I just told him how the games are sold out and it's a great atmosphere and we have a really good team."

You need to be here, Lidge told him.

A decade ago, the Phillies were a downtrodden franchise, one of baseball's have-nots. Now they're as close to the Yankees in the National League when it comes to being aggressive.

A great deal of credit should also go to Pat Gillick, the brilliant baseball lifer who was the GM when the Phillies won it in 2008 and is now a special adviser to the club. A sharp-eyed observer with contacts and relationships throughout the game, Gillick makes for the perfect consigliere to Amaro.

So does another baseball lifer, Dallas Green.

A Stanford grad who played for the Phillies and grew up in the organization when his father played here, Amaro has surrounded himself with sage baseball men while building his own persona as a GM.

He has a little of that Phil Helmuth to go with Gekko.

This time, Riverboat Rube trumps with Roys.