It looks as if the Phillies’ equipment manager’s sewing machine is going to be working overtime this spring putting names and numbers on the jerseys of all the players who have been invited to Clearwater for spring training.
So far, 69 players have been invited to big league camp, and a slew of them are on minor league deals. In fact, most of the bullpen could be made up of arms that come to Florida on those minor league contracts. This off-season, Matt Klentak’s plan for building the bullpen deviated from his strategy the previous two seasons when he paid big money to veteran arms like Pat Neshek, Tommy Hunter, Juan Nicasio and David Robertson.