Between the pandemic and the awful weather, this winter seems to have lasted as long as 2020 did. And that was a loooooooooong time.
Anyway, the only real competition will be for a handful of bullpen sports and the starting center fielder. The Phillies announced that Odubel Herrera has been invited to the big league camp. Oh joy. So add him, Scott Kingery, Roman Quinn, Adam Haseley, and the recently signed Travis Jankowski and his career .628 OPS to the mix in CF. It'll be interesting to see how they split up playing time with a limited Grapefruit League schedule and no split-squad games. Another interesting addition to the mini camp roster is shortstop Bryson Stott, the team's first-round pick in 2019.
And there will be fans in the stands in Florida. The Phils will sell 2,200 tickets for each game, one-quarter of the capacity of Spectrum Field in Clearwater. Exhibition games begin Feb. 28 and the regular season starts April 1, provided the pandemic doesn't foul things up. I mean, with all those maskless yahoos running around Florida, what could possibly go wrong?
The statistics site Fangraphs.com has come out with its preseason predictions, which shows the Phils finishing fourth in the NL East with a 13.4 percent chance to make the playoffs. I think the Phils will be better than last year, and the bullpen has to be better. I'll wait a few weeks to see how Spring Training unfolds before I make any predictions.
But our long national nightmare is over. Spring Training has arrived.
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