Coming a long way

It’s funny how quickly things change, to coin a phrase. After all, it wasn’t too long ago that manager Larry Bowa was forced to send Chase Utley back to the minors so that Doug Glanville could take over the last roster spot. Bowa didn’t want to do it, and if I remember correctly, fought hard to keep Utley for Opening Day in 2004, but with Placido Polanco set as the second baseman and David Bell entrenched at third base, Utley would have been able to get four or five at-bats every night in Scranton.

The rationale, as explained by the former Phillies administration of Ed Wade and Bowa, was that Glanville could spell Marlon Byrd in center field and come in and swipe a bag or two. Besides, Utley was purely an offensive player at that point of his career and his defense wasn’t so great.

Nope, Bowa didn’t really buy what he was ordered to sell. Imagine that? Byrd and Glanville for Utley?

Utley ended playing in 94 games in ’04 – 50 at second base and 13 at first base – and seemed destined to take over as the everyday second baseman until Wade offered arbitration to Polanco. Since he wasn’t one to turn down millions of dollars, Polanco accepted and Utley found himself in a platoon. Though he hit 28 homers and knocked in 105 runs in 2005, Utley was on the bench on opening day.

Polanco was traded by June and Utley hasn’t looked over his shoulder or picked up his first-baseman’s mitt since. Not even two years after sitting on the bench on opening day, Utley has a new $85 million deal with the Phillies.

Meanwhile, Ryan Howard seems to be walking the same path as his pal Utley, though when the time comes it seems as if the slugging first baseman will be messing around with Powerball-jackpot type digits. Unless Howard turns into Joe Charboneau (or Pat Burrell) it seems as if the Phillies will take care of him before spring training opens in 2008.

But like Utley, Howard never could break camp with the Phillies for one reason or another. One of those reasons, of course, was bona fide 40-homer man Jim Thome. Another was Wade and the Phillies’ reluctance to take a chance on a young player even when that young player was destroying the records at every stop in the minors. It definitely was an organizational thing, too. In fact, I remember talking to Reading manager Greg Legg during Howard’s assault of the Eastern League in 2004 and he said Howard needed a year of Triple-A before making the jump to the big leagues.

He said it, but I don’t think he believed it. All of the Phillies’ brass were saying that kind of stuff back then.

Nevertheless, count on Howard and his “ordinary” contract being a topic of discussion all summer. That’s just what happens for some reason. I remember how Kevin Millwood’s contract status was such a hot topic in 2003, and how Millwood told us he wasn’t going to talk about it anymore before talking about how he wasn’t going to talk about it.

It’s a vicious cycle or something like that.

Howard, it appears, made his first full season in the Majors, too good, according to a quoted source in Jayson Stark’s story on ESPN.com from Jan. 24. Technically, the Phillies don’t have to do anything with his contract and if they want to pay him the minimum – slightly below $400,000 – they can.

They won’t because Pat Gillick is smart. He knows better than us why the Howards felt it necessary to have three different agents in a little more than a year. Perhaps (despite his public and behind-closed-doors media persona) Howard is sensitive and takes perceived slights hard? Hey, we’ve seen that before, right?

The last part is just some out-loud thinking, but the point remains – Utley and Howard have come a very long way in a very short time.