I really don’t care that Bryce Harper found Dave Dombrowski questioning if he was still elite to be “wild” or not. That’s not a knock on Harper or Dombrowski, both of whom will probably end up enshrined in Cooperstown. It’s just a nothing story. Harper has not uttered the word trade, nor has his agent Scott Boras, and Dombrowski was quick to note he was not ever considering trading Harper. Sure, Harper was asked about the comments again when he arrived at Spring Training, and he did answer honestly, including that he didn’t have an elite season in 2025, according to himself. This is nonsense and should be treated as such. There are much more important things to be covering in this camp.

The Phillies won 96 games last year. Their bullpen is miles better than it was last year to start the season, or for that matter, where it was to end the season. Kepler and Castellanos are gone from the outfield, and while Adolis Garcia may not excite you, he’s a better overall player than them. Of course there is Justin Crawford too, possibly the best player in AAA last season that I saw, who posted an .863 OPS, a year after an .805 OPS. These are better numbers by a now 22 year old than anything we’ve brought up in years. In fact he was better in AAA than top tier Mets prospect Carson Benge, who their fans are rightly excited about sticking into their outfield this year, and is a full year younger. The outfield should be measurably better this year. Turner won the batting title and Schwarber the home run title in the NL last year, so we have no reason to think they’re falling off. And well, Harper should have no problem matching or exceeding last year. The only part of the team that took a step backward on paper is the rotation, because losing Ranger Suarez hurts. If Zack Wheeler is actually back by May and pitching like himself, if Aaron Nola is even a 4.50 ERA type of pitcher, and if Andrew Painter even shows you flashes of his talent this year, they will fill in that hole just fine. This team has things to be concerned about. They absolutely should be a playoff team though. And well, I’m not accounting for Aiden Miller potentially arriving at some point either. He has 30/30 annual talent if he can put it together. The doom and gloom the media have built around this team is nauseating. This is an objectively very good team.

We just went through a season of largely manufactured drama and nonsense around the Eagles, and now we’re starting baseball off on the same foot. The Eagles have been done for a month, no one believes in the Sixers or Flyers, and there aren’t baseball games until Friday, so we get nonsense slop. Castellanos is mostly gone because he was mediocre two years ago (at best) and downright awful in 2025. Matt Strahm is gone because of a couple of playoff meltdowns the last two years, signs of decline, a fairly high salary that outpaced the role he would have had here, and because the Phillies felt they upgraded on him over the past few months. Harper, while still a really good player, was not elite last year. There is no further story, there is nothing to read into it, there’s no smoke, let alone fire. All of the drama coverage is nonsense.

Obviously things will play out on the field. There are real stories to cover. Crawford, Painter, and Miller are to varying degrees competing to carve out roles as rookies on this team. Wheeler and Nola’s bounce backs this season, or lack thereof, will almost certainly determine if this team is as good as last year. Who gets at-bats against lefties instead of Marsh in left field is an actual competition. Stott and Bohm are kind of playing for their futures here. There are lots of things to actually pay attention to in this Phillies camp. None of it is the nonsense we are getting from the press. This is far from “running it back” from last year, and the press is trying to cover this team as if it’s stale and declining with no actual signs of that being true. I’d love to see actual coverage of the baseball team. I’m not holding my breathe that we’ll get it.