Phillies prospect Brown getting education in spring training

CLEARWATER, Fla. - He had no doubt he was going to swing, and he admitted as much yesterday afternoon as a youthful grin crept across his face. The vast majority of the pitchers he had terrorized over the previous 4 years will be fortunate just to make a big-league roster, much less win a Cy Young Award. And so, on a sunny but blustery day in Southwestern Florida, with a handful of coaches and front-office personnel looking on, Domonic Brown dug into the batter's box, cocked his bat, and sent his long, lean, mechanism of a body into motion.

And fouled one off.

"It was a great experience," Brown, the Phillies' top position prospect, said after his first at-bat against live pitching, "but he also made me look pretty bad in there."

He would be Roy Halladay, the man who not long ago made Brown's heart skip a beat as he drove across Florida toward his mother's house in Port St. Lucie. It was mid-December, and a report about the Phillies' acquisition of Halladay had crackled over the radio in his car. His first thought was one that flashed through a number of minds when the news broke that the 2003 AL Cy Young winner was headed to Philadelphia.

"I'm gone," Brown said.

But then he picked up his phone and dialed his good friend and fellow subject of trade rumors. Nope, Michael Taylor told him, you aren't the one who's gone.

And with that passed one of the major turning points in Phillies history. Taylor, the five-tool corner outfielder whom the organization rated as its second-best position prospect, went to the Toronto Blue Jays, and then to the Oakland Athletics. Brown, on the other hand, remained in Florida, where 3 weeks later he received his first invitation to big-league spring training.

Now, with less than a week remaining before the Phillies' exhibition opener, Brown finds himself sitting in the clubhouse at Bright House Field, sharing a room with the type of stars many predict he will one day become.

"I'm just trying to pick everybody's brain apart," Brown said. "Watch [Chase] Utley, [Ryan] Howard - just get what I can get out of it, working hard and showing the guys what I can do here."

Selected in the 20th round in 2006 out of Stone Mountain, Ga., Brown's career began in humble fashion. He signed with the Phillies instead of accepting a football scholarship to Miami, then proceeded to hit just .214 in 34 games for the organization's rookie team in Clearwater. His breakout season came in 2008, when he hit .291 with a .382 on-base percentage, nine home runs and 22 steals at low-Class A Lakewood. Last year, he hit .303 with a .386 OBP and 11 homers at high-Class A Clearwater, then hit .279/.346 with three homers in 37 games at Double A Reading.

By last July, Brown had entrenched himself as one of the few "untouchables" in the Phillies' farm system, a lefthanded-hitting corner outfielder with speed, power, and a 6-5, 204-pound frame that has only begun to fill out.

Earlier this week, Baseball America named him the 15th-best prospect in baseball, the highest ranking for a Phillies minor leaguer since Gavin Floyd ranked ninth in 2003.

"I'm really not into that kind of stuff," Brown said. "I try not to think about that stuff, to tell you the truth. It's much easier to stay focused. I'll never start looking at the rankings or the prospect stuff, because there are no guarantees in the minor leagues."

Which is why Brown's showdown against Halladay yesterday was worth noting.

It was one of those fleeting-yet-priceless portraits of spring training, an exchange you only happened to catch if you were standing in the right spot at the right time. On the mound was a veteran righthander running through an annual routine that years from now might not warrant a blip in his memory bank. In the batter's box was an ubertalented, 22-year-old prospect with his first at-bat of the spring, eager to test himself.

Veterans like Utley and Raul Ibanez, who preceded him at the plate and did not even bother to swing, view the first live batting-practice session as a chance to recalibrate their eyes to live pitching. Prospects like Brown view it as one of a limited number of opportunities that they will receive before returning to life in the minor leagues.

Shielded by a protective screen and monitored by a pitching coach, Halladay sent pitch after pitch toward home, continuing to shake off the lingering winter rust. Brown, however, didn't care.

"I wanted to get a couple swings in, man," he said with a laugh.

He got several in, although none resulted in a ball in play.

"It's tough at this point for any of them," Halladay said. "It's their first time seeing pitchers, and they are trying to see the ball as much as they can. Obviously I've heard great things about him, and the first time you see guys like that it's tough to see what they are all about. But he's a big guy. He's a big guy when you are standing in there."

Once camp breaks, Brown will almost certainly head back to Double A Reading, where he will try to build on his brief success from last season.

With rightfielder Jayson Werth scheduled to hit the open market after the season and leftfielder Ibanez due to follow in 2011, he is very much a part of the team's long-term plans.

For now, however, his plan is simple: Keep learning . . . and swinging.