The Phillies have re-structured, promoted from within and employed new hires to their minor league player development staff since Preston Mattingly was hired as Player Development Director on September 30th. It is mix of objective and subjective information blending to make baseball decisions, hopefully a reinvigorated “Phillies Way”. Additions to the staff have been both veteran coaches with experience from MLB affiliations and those from other high performance teaching baseball backgrounds. Reporting and communication chains have been refined with consistency of messaging in mind. There are still a few spots to fill which is why the organization hasn’t made a staff announcement yet but hopefully that will come in early February at the latest. I will have a detailed article to post once the club formally makes their announcement.
MLB and the MLBPA are scheduled to meet Thursday via a zoom conference. It’s the intent to reconvene negotiations focused on the core economic issues of concern. They need to agree at least on minimum salaries, performance bonus pool for pre-arbitration players, changes to the draft and the CBT threshold. Also likely on the table, but in my opinion, a certainty to be agreed upon is the Universal DH and expanding the number of teams that qualify for the playoffs. The clock is ticking, while some may believe there’s still no urgency I find that view illogical as logistics need to be addressed and accommodations must be made now or relatively soon if no revenue from Spring Training is to be lost. Let’s hope they can get it done in the next week or so and we are back to baseball news concerning play on the fields rather than negotiations in the conference rooms.
Some minor league players either have arrived in the Clearwater area or are scheduled to do so in the next couple of weeks. Informal workouts at the Complex are allowable for minor leaguers although there are also private facilities they can utilize in the area as well. The Complex presently remains closed to the public and that’s likely the case for the foreseeable future. Phillies Phantasy Camp will take place next week ( Wednesday thru Sunday ) but it’s not likely to be open to the public either so autograph seekers of former Phillies legends should not bother to come, access will not be given.
I am going to start on a series of minor league organizational depth articles by position, something I’ve regularly done each spring prior to camp. Official Minor League Camp is still a ways off, likely late February or early March so there’s time to ponder where things stand prior to the fellas taking the back fields to prepare for the 2022 season. Even if the MLB lockout continues indefinitely the minor leaguers should be able to begin their work as scheduled.
Just sayin … MLB pitchers and catchers are scheduled to officially report in 34 days, still hopeful that comes to fruition but then again I’m always hopeful, without hope there’s no future 🤓.
Happy Day, Happy Baseball ⚾️
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