Pitchers and catchers report next week, and now we’ve got some Phillies roster news:
This is not totally surprising. Herrera is owed $10 million this year and Dave Dombrowski did not rule out letting the 29-year-old compete for a spot when recently asked about it.
Odubel was arrested two years ago following a domestic violence incident and suspended for 85 games. His girlfriend chose not to move forward with charges, the pair repaired their relationship, and Herrerra apologized while committing money to the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence.
The Phillies are giving him the opportunity to earn his job back, though nothing is guaranteed at all, so it seems like a rather straightforward “we’ll give this guy a second chance” type of situation.
Additionally, the Phils invited catcher Rodolfo Duran to spring training. Fellow catcher Jeff Mathis was added on a minor league contract, with an invitation to attend spring training as well.
Here are the non-roster invitees:
And these are your 18 internal players, not on the 40-man roster, who will also be in Clearwater:
Does Herrera have a legit shot at winning the center field job? Dunno. He’d had to have a fantastic spring and outperform those other guys by a significant margin. That’s my guess. But they’re giving him a shot, obviously knowing that this is not a popular move among the portion of the fan base that believes Odubel should never wear the uniform again.
Edit – I should point out that Odubel is not in big-league camp, but on the mini camp roster instead.