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Imagining the future with team-dictated Phillies stars

The Phillies' offseason public relations campaign is clearly going to focus on the "phuture." Will it be the same as the "future?" No one knows.

By Justin Klugh
Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports

While the rest of the league has been obsessing over the so-called "playoffs" as well as whether or not Chase Utley is an attempted murderer, the Phillies, in their musty little corner of the baseball universe, are up to something.

Some have suggested that rather than hunting for David Price or Jason Heyward among the free agent elite this offseason, the team will instead invest more in the young players stationed up and down the farm system. There's no indication that they'll definitely be doing one thing or the other; I mean, they don't even have a GM yet, but the team itself has started pushing the next core of potential young stars even before the end of the playoffs.

Yes, following a twenty-minute brainstorming session, the Phillies wound up back in the inescapable appeal of the old "Phun with Fonetics" angle that they have been using for years.

It is cool to see something like "the future" being addressed by the Phillies, regardless of its spelling. And the team didn't stop there, explaining which of their players' names will be on the back of the jerseys you buy over the next few years.

Observations:

  • Repeating the "Phuture is bright" phrase at the end of each video confirms that they want this to be their "#TogetherWeBuild," which is good news, given how little complaining there is about that team once the franchise got transparent about their plans.
  • Has anyone heard Aaron Nola referred to as "The Big Easy?" Is that something a professional pitcher would want to be called? Is that something a grown adult would want to be called? "Hey, who are we facing tonight?" "The Big Easy." "I don't know who that is, but for some reason he sounds like a really easy pitcher to beat." "Yeah." "Like he's just flopping around out there like an inflatable tube man in the wind, pooping out loopy curveballs that we can bash for awesome home runs." "Well I wouldn't have gone that specific with it but okay."
  • Something tells me the Phillies will be hearing from Michael Jordan and/or Gatorade attorneys regarding the #BeLikeMaik tag, as MJ probably doesn't know who Maikel Franco is, or who the Phillies are, or - I wouldn't be surprised - who Derek Jeter was, even when he was nodding at him in that commercial. Why not go with "#MaikelJack" like the Daily News cover? The answer is because #BeLikeMaik is better.
  • Where is returning core-member Jeff Francoeur's ad campaign.
And so, with the these young stars prepping to go supernova, and Chase "The Murderer" Utley safely on the other side of the country, the Phillies can begin to rebuild anew. My guess is that they will succeed in getting us all jacked up for the 2016 season and then we will all become sad and bored again come let's say August. Baseball: it's how we choose to spend our time.

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