Amaro not totally comfortable with outfield rotation

HANG AROUND Charlie Manuel for 8 months a year and you'll hear some of his favorite, unique expressions on a regular basis. Charlie-isms.

Some of them wouldn't make sense if they came from anyone else's mouth. Others make a lot of sense and speak to the baseball acumen of the longtime manager.

At least a few times a month, Manuel will repeat the same refrain regarding major league players who are on the fringe of becoming staples in his lineup.

It goes something like his: "It takes a special player to be an everyday, major league player . . . "

The Phillies have their share of such players, including two MVPs (Jimmy Rollins and Ryan Howard) and three All-Stars (Chase Utley, Michael Young, Carlos Ruiz), at least when everyone is healthy. But as the roster stands on Jan. 11 - a month and a day before camp opens in Clearwater, Fla. - they also have two spots in their lineup that bring Manuel's words to mind.

In the two corner outfield spots, the Phillies have four players - Domonic Brown, John Mayberry Jr., Darin Ruf and Laynce Nix - but no proven major league starters.

If you polled the fan base regarding the makeup of that outfield, Ruben Amaro Jr. probably wouldn't get a very high approval rating. If the paying customers aren't comfortable, what's the general manager's comfort level?

"I don't know if I'm all that comfortable," Amaro said in a phone conversation Thursday. "I'd like to see if I can add to it, if there's viable [reason] why to do that. Ideally, I'd have one platoon situation where three to four guys battle for it and one stable situation.

"Right now, we don't have that. That would be my preference. I'd like to get younger and have one of those guys be an everyday player . . . If there's not a viable option than what we have, it may behoove us to wait to see if that person comes available to us later on."

Amaro compared the current situation to the one he faced 2 years ago, when the team went into spring training with the combination of Ben Francisco and Brown in line to replace departed free agent Jayson Werth. But Brown got hurt, Francisco struggled and Amaro eventually filled the rightfield void by trading for Hunter Pence.

Amaro could go that route again, meaning that what he has on the field in a month isn't necessarily what he'll have on the field for most of the 2013 season. Or Brown, who broke the hamate bone in his right hand two springs ago, could stay on the field and win the job himself this time.

While Mayberry and Nix are established as major league reserve players and Ruf has too little big-league experience to fall into any one category, Brown might be the wild card in the current corner outfield setup.

With 433 major league at-bats, Brown has been tested against big-league pitching. But since those 433 at-bats span three seasons, it's probably not a big enough sample size to know what he is as a major leaguer.

Part of that is on Brown. Beginning with the hamate injury, Brown has failed to stay on the field regularly while battling a series of injuries.

He played in 121 games between the major and minor leagues last season, after playing in 102 games 2 years ago. In the last two spring trainings, Brown has been limited to 13 games.

Whether he can be a productive, everyday major league player won't be known until he can be relied on to be durable enough to play every day.

"Obviously we have to see if he can play a full season - that's a factor," Amaro said. "But he's had some freaky things happen to him. He jammed a knee on a dive; another time, he had the hook of the hamate; another time, dove for a ball and injured his thumb. These are things that just happen, can't really control them."

Brown battled soreness in both of his knees in the last two seasons, but Amaro said, "all indications are he should be fine" when camp begins next month.

Cole Hamels is back into his offseason throwing program after experiencing shoulder soreness earlier this offseason, according to a CSNPhilly.com report. Ruben Amaro Jr. said Hamels was "fine" and would be in line with every other healthy pitcher in camp when pitchers begin official workouts next month. The Phils signed Hamels to a 6-year, $144 million contract extension in July . . .  

Chase Utley, who makes an offseason home in San Francisco, has continued to take regular ground-ball work. The Phillies' medical staff will meet with Utley one more time before spring training. Utley hasn't played in a Grapefruit League game since 2010 while battling chronic knee injuries. "Based on everything I know, and what we've seen, he should be ready to go," Amaro said . . . Jimmy Rollins, Ryan Howard, Roy Halladay and Kyle Kendrick are among the Phillies players already working out regularly in the greater Tampa-Clearwater area. Amaro said the strength in Howard's lower left leg is "close to 100 percent." Howard had left Achilles' surgery 16 months ago.

Blog: philly.com/HighCheese