CLEARWATER, Fla. — On the night before the Philadelphia Phillies’ first full-squad workout of spring training, as he was still batting around in his head what his message to the assembled players would be, Gabe Kapler’s phone kept buzzing. Each time, it was another news-headline push notification telling him something that, owing to some well-sourced insider knowledge, he strongly suspected to be untrue: that the Phillies were closing in on a deal to sign Bryce Harper.
“They were just like, ‘Pop, pop, pop’ — here’s a story, here’s a story,” Kapler, the Phillies’ manager, recalled Monday afternoon at Spectrum Field.