In the spring of 1993, expectations were low.
Most major publications picked the Phillies to finish near the bottom of the NL East standings. In those days, only four teams made the playoffs and there was no way a last place team in 1992 was going to do a 180 reversal and become a division champion. It certainly wasn’t going to happen to a ragtag Phillies team that hadn’t made the postseason in 10 years and had been largely disappointing from 1984 to ‘92.
Then, those ‘93 Phillies started to play some spring training games.