Training With The Stars
Phillies prospects learning from new acquisitions
JUPITER, FLA. » Adam Haseley is polite when he points out that he’s heard a certain question before.
How, as one of a slew of top outfield prospects that the Phillies have stocked their organization with, does he feel about sharing a spring clubhouse with two outfielders who’ve been named National League MVPs?
“I’ve been asked that a couple of times,” Haseley said genially. “And I always say the same thing. At first, you’re really taken back and kind of starstruck for a second like, man these are guys you grew up watching on TV, YouTube, or whatever it was. And now you’re doing outfield drills and taking BP and stuff with them.
“It’s pretty cool. It’s cool to pick their brain, see how they work.”
Years of bad baseball bestowed on the Phillies a half-decade of high picks used to refill a depleted farm system. The yield has been not just a solid corps of big leaguers and fringe starters — Aaron Altherr and Dylan Cozens were drafted; Nick Williams was acquired in the Cole Hamels deal — but a burgeoning crop of outfield prospects still wending through the system.
Three of the Phillies’ top six prospects in MLB.com’s most recent rankings are outfielders: Haseley third, Mickey Moniak fifth and 20-year-old Dominican signee Jhailyn Ortiz sixth. And there’s still Cornelius Randolph, a converted shortstop who was the No. 10 pick in 2015.
But for all the talent bubbling up below, the path to the big league is unclear. The right field job will be Bryce Harper’s for the next decade-plus. At a cost of $50 million, Andrew McCutchen will be hard to displace in left until 2021. That leaves Haseley and
his fellow youngsters time to learn, and there are few better examples to follow.
“Everything they do is really disciplined,” Haseley said. “They’re always getting their work in. They’re always taking care of their body. So it’s just kind of cool to see the routine, how they go about their day. They get there early and they leave late. Everything they do when they’re inside the clubhouse and at the field is with a purpose.”
Haseley is the last of the prospects left in camp. Moniak, the No. 1 overall pick in 2016, was optioned to Triple-A March 9 after 11 spring big-league games, batting .200 with two doubles, a triple and nine strikeouts in 20 atbats. Randolph, who managed a second straight season of 400 at-bats but had an anemic slash line of .241/.324/.322, didn’t get a spring invite, nor did Ortiz, who hit .225 at SingleA Lakewood.
Haseley, the eighth pick in the 2017 draft out of the University of Virginia, has gotten 36 spring at-bats, batting .167 with a homer and six RBIs. The 22-yearold hit .305 in 118 games last year between HighA Clearwater and DoubleA Reading. He was still with the team as of Tuesday, when the Phillies’ trip to Palm Beach to take on the Astros was rained out, a trip that vets like Harper and McCutchen were exempt from.
The bigger stage of bigleague camp allows Haseley to work through his preseason preparation while also getting a look the next level.
“I’m here to get my work in and prepare for wherever I’m placed at this season,” Haseley said. “It’s different for guys that have been around the game for a while and are kind of fighting to make a spot. For me, I try to stay out of the way, get my work in, if I have an opportunity to play, then I’m trying to play as hard as I can, but it’s more of me just trying to prepare for the year.”
Having McCutchen and Harper to use as role models is part of that process, one he’s soaking up as best he can.
“I think you kind of learn just by getting thrown into it,” Haseley said. “Obviously there’s more people at these games, it’s a bigger stage, on TV, all those sorts of things. It’s not so much that the game has changed but the surroundings, the energy, all that stuff is a lot more heightened, so it’s just getting used to that even though I’m not really used to it. It’s adapting to it the best I can.”