On a lazy spring-training morning earlier this month at Spectrum Field – as lazy as a spring-training morning gets when Gabe Kapler is managing, that is – music filled the Phillies clubhouse. Rhys Hoskins stood at his locker and spoke over the sound. The music was a country song, Garth Brooks’ “Friends in Low Places” – a crowd-pleasing singalong, popular in the early 1990s, about a man who can’t let go of the past – and it offered a stark juxtaposition to the substance of Hoskins’ words.
The Phillies will have four outfielders who, in theory, will be worthy of being in the starting lineup: Hoskins, Odubel Herrera, Aaron Altherr, and Nick Williams.