The light at the end of this unbelievably slow and boring Phillies off-season tunnel is finally starting to grow a bit brighter.
This week, the Phillies announced that pitchers and catchers are due to report to Clearwater on Valentine’s Day, February 14, and the first full-squad workout will begin five days later, on February 19.
However, we’re getting to the point of the winter where the Phils, and just about every other big league player, start to get the itch to feel the warm of the dirt and grass on the bottoms of the cleats, smell those palm trees, and get back to the business of playing ball.
The Phils also announced an invitation to 15 players not on their 40-man roster to come to spring training.
There are some interesting names on that list.
Mick Abel is set to start the 2024 season in the Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs’ starting rotation and enters the year as the franchise’s top healthy pitching prospect. Big things are expected out of the former first round pick, a top-100 prospect and one of the best young right-handed pitching prospects in the minors. Abel had some good moments last season but struggled with his consistency and ability to throw strikes consistently, but the team will be watching him closely to see if he can potentially be an addition to the big league rotation at some point this year. He’ll be one of the most closely watched players in camp.
Griff McGarry entered last year as the team’s third or fourth-ranked prospect, armed with an electric fastball, devastating breaking balls, and an utter inability to throw strikes consistently. By the end of the season, the team had to pull McGarry from the Reading rotation because he had lost any and all ability to throw the ball over the plate. We’ll be watching closely to see if his off-season work has helped him harness stuff that is certainly big league caliber.
Outfielder Carlos De La Cruz slugged 24 home runs and 25 doubles in 129 games for Reading last season, and yet the team exposed the 6’8” 23-year-old to the Rule V draft. No other team claimed him so he returned to the Phils and will certainly be a starting corner outfielder for the Iron Pigs. The Phils are currently searching for some outfield depth and there is the potential that De La Cruz, if he impresses early in the season, could be one of the first to be called up to provide an offensive spark.
And hey, old friend Scott Kingery is getting another invitation. The former much-ballyhooed second baseman who signed a five-year big league contract before he had ever played a game in the majors, has spent the last five years bouncing back and forth between the Injured List and playing inconsistently in AAA. It’s unlikely he plays in Philadelphia at all this year, but it’s always interesting to see what Scotty Jetpax may have left in the tank– if anything.
Right now, even news about fake baseball sounds pretty exciting! LET’S GOOOOO!
