Today, Monday January 8, 2024, marks the beginning of the 2024 baseball season.  Okay, it’s the official beginning.  And, observed by only a few people like me.  But I was at the Complex today and watched many of our young prospects take part in the year’s first High Performance Camp.

The camps held earlier in the offseason were strictly about increasing performance by building up the body with no baseball activities included.  Preston Mattingly told us that this camp will start out in a similar fashion, move on to defensive drills next week, and hitting the third week.  Their schedules are always etched in clay as they have alw2ays considered schedules a suggestion and not necessarily something that requires strict adherence.  In any event, I don’t care.  I’m just glad to have something to watch now that the football season is over.  (Yeah, I said it.)

The players came out in four semi-distinct groupings.  The first three groups included the invited participants.  Each of these groups included pitchers and position players.  They congregated on Carlton Field and split up by position – pitchers down the left field line and position players down the right field line.  These players loosened up running a variety of “sprints” – normal, knees high, lateral.  They followed this with long toss.  Most pitchers preceded their long toss by loosening their arms by throwing a ball against a padded fence.

It was interesting to see some pitchers tossing with their partner and others firing the ball with velocity.

These groups were finished pretty quickly, within about 30 minutes.  They went inside to do their weight work before lunch and other indoor stuff like meetings, I guess.  Their day was expected to be over by 2:00 PM.

The fourth group did not divide into pitchers and position players.  It was comprised of about two dozen players still in rehab.  After a brief huddle in left field, all the players who have not been cleared to throw went back inside.  Those remaining performed their running and long toss before joining their comrades inside.

By my random count, there were about 54 players in the first three groups – 28 position players and 26 pitchers.  There were maybe another 18 guys in the rehab group all but 3 were pitchers.  There were 9 to 11 in the non-throwing group, I think all were pitchers.  One was Painter.

That brings us to who was here.  It’s going to take a couple more days to identify all the guys who are here.  Some wear hoodies that cover their names on their shirts.  Some faces are new and will remain a mystery while we do our detective work.  (If you don’t already know, I go to the Complex with Steve Potter.  We talk a lot of baseball and help each other out identifying players and finding out other things.  Although, I have to admit that I receive more benefit from Steve than he receives from me.)

Anyway, aside from Andrew Painter, some of the players in attendance that I clearly saw were Carlos De La Cruz,  Avery Owusu-Asiedu (he put on some more muscle), Tommy McCollum (gawd, he’s built like the guy who plays Reacher, not the Tom Cruise Reacher), William Bergolla, Starlyn Caba, Luis Caicuta, TJayy Walton (correct spelling), Ethan Chenault, Jordi Martinez, Pan Wen-Hui, Mavis Graves, Micah Ottenbreit, AJ Shaver, Jake Eddington, Caleb Ricketts, Luke Russo, Alex McFarlane, Dominic Pipkin, Mitch Neunborn, Alex Garbrick, Trey Dillard, Giussepe Velasquez, Tyler McKay, Andrew Schultz, Saul Teran, Andrew Walling, Samuel Aldegheri, Brandon Beckel, Alexis De La Cruz (Hinkie, he’s built like Francisco Morales), Christian Hernandez, Eduardo Tait (pronounced as 2 syllables, tie-eat), and Jonathan Petit.

Obviously, there are more players than these.  I’ll be confirming more in the coming days.

I hope to go to the Complex every day and write something each night.  I might not have anything new each day, but I want to get back in the habit of writing everyday so I’m prepared for spring training and then the daily updates.  So, bear with me if I produce a lot of fluff and nothing.

After more than two months of no baseball and six weeks of shitty Eagles football, it was great to get out to the Complex and see the kids again.

Transactions

December 2023
12/22/2023 – Phillies signed FA RHP Efrain Contreras to an MiLB contract
12/20/2023 – RHP Ryan Burr assigned to Lehigh Valley
12/20/2023 – RHP Robinson Pina assigned to Reading
12/20/2023 – 3B Jacob Gonzalez assigned to Reading
12/13/2023 – SS Denilson Aguila assigned to DSL Phillies White
12/12/2023 – Phillies signed FA RHP Ryan Burr to an MiLB contract
12/11/2023 – Phillies signed FA 3B Jacob Gonzalez to an MiLB contract
12/11/2023 – Phillies signed FA RHP Robinson Pina to an MiLB contract
12/08/2023 – RHP Max Lazar assigned to Reading
12/08/2023 – Phillies signed FA RHP Max Lazar to a minor league contract