Phillies daily links: 3/4/19

Well, the weekend came and went and guess what?

BRYCE HARPER IS STILL PART OF THE PHILLIES’ ORGANIZATION.

Yes, the fever dream that wasn’t came true and we didn’t have hallucinations. The team finally has a franchise player. Someone good enough to win games on the field and sponsors off of it. Maybe he’ll team up with Gritty and the Phanatic and make a promotional video for the city.

Any way, on to the links!

Here at The Good Phight:

• The Phillies have done a critical thing in their final stages of the rebuild: they’ve upgraded the team.
• John Middleton did what he set out to do when this offseason began. He made the team better. There is only one phrase that works here.
• In case you haven’t noticed it, we’ve begun our season preview. Here is the story stream to help you get ready for the upcoming season.

Other Phillies news:

• In case you were wondering when Harper will make his spring debut, Saturday looks like the magical day.
• Here is a take on Harper that you might not have seen from a poor sport New York-based writer: he’s thankful the Yankees weren’t “suckers” for signing Harper.
• Remember when Harper made a little oopsie in his press conference? So does he...
• Perhaps the biggest key to the team’s rotation looked very good Sunday afternoon. It looks like he’s found some issues from last year and corrected them.

MLB esoterica:

• Baby Guerrero can do good things with the bat, like this! Yeah, better keep him in AAA for a while, looks like he needs it.
• Mike Trout might be getting an offer soon that will eclipse Harper’s new contract. When I saw the $350 million number, my first thought was: “ Cool, what are they going to pay him from years 5-10?”
• Manny Machado doesn’t want Fernando Tatis, Jr. starting the season in the minors. I think after giving the guy $300 million, they’d value his opinion a bit.