Phillies straight up refuse to announce anything at tender deadline

Every year, fans from around the world, clench their butts over the early December bounty of Phillies news. This involves minor comings and goings, roster housekeeping, and the revealing of certain lists at certain, weird, late night times. The MLB Tender Deadline of last night exists so that players with less than six years under their belts can become free agents, should they not be tendered a contract by their current team by now.

The Phillies Offseason - A Very Exciting Time!

As any of you who stayed up late last night as part of a countdown to the Phillies announcing their list of players who would not be tendered contracts, things were a little quiet.

It's 12:31 a.m. EST. The tender deadline was a half hour ago. The Phillies have not announced anything. Which is... weird.

— Ryan Lawrence (@ryanlawrence21) December 3, 2014

What are you up to, Phillies? Some kind of early winter madness? That's it, isn't it - you're meant to look clueless and inept, but in reality, you're pulling all the strings.

"Why didn't they announce anything?" ask other teams, suddenly holding back their own news. "Well, we don't need to give anyone any info, either."

And baseball becomes a game of Tom Clancy espionage, with GMs all staring at huge computer screens with Ruben Amaro's face on them, having not slept in days, stroking their scraggly beards and asking the image, "What are you up to....."

Whatever it is, I'm sure it's all part of this long term, overarching plan to improve the team we've been not hearing about. Or, the mole person who is the Phillies' social media director fell asleep on a pile of old rags and forgot to tweet something out at 12:30 at night. Regardless, the move is being touted by experts as sexy and exciting.

I love that the Phillies never announced their tender/non-tenders. Such rebels.

— Corinne (@Ut26) December 3, 2014