I remember when Drabek was drafted, lots of people weren’t happy, thinking the Phillies had wasted a draft pick on a kid with a lot of baggage who was never going to pan out. After his rough debut in the GCL, those people started to trumpet their message even louder. But now it appears that they might have been wrong, as Drabek is 1.5 years removed from being drafted, is 7 months into the post-Tommy John surgery part of his baseball career, and he seems to be saying all the right things.

As the Phillies were going through an early spring workout, Kyle Drabek cut between two practice fields on his way to a minor-league clubhouse.

“I’d like to be out there with everyone, but spring training is a lot of hard work,” the 20-year-old pitching prospect joked.

Seven months into his recovery from Tommy John surgery, the Phils’ 2006 No. 1 draft pick knows he has plenty of rehab work ahead of him.

This time a year ago, Drabek was in spring training with the Phillies less a year out of high school. This year, he received no big-league spring invitation, just a locker at the minor-league complex.

The Texas native has been in Clearwater since October working with Phillies trainers and now is throwing at 90 feet.

He has no idea when he’ll get back on the mound and predicts he’ll miss the entire 2008 season and not pitch again until next fall in the Florida Instructional League.

“My arm feels good,” said Drabek, who has lost five pounds and some of his baby fat while rehabbing.

This coming after the report from Kevin Goldstein in his Phillies Top 11 that Drabek has had zero problems in the last year in terms of attitude or off the field trouble. The arm is special, we’ve all known that, it was just a matter of him wanting to mature and become a pitcher, not just a kid with an attitude that throws hard. Sure, this is just a minor detail with two throwaway quotes, but to me, based on everything that’s been written about Drabek over the last year, it’s just one more step closer to him realizing his talent and making the Phillies gamble on him look pretty smart.