Demotion puts Brown at pivotal point of his career

CLEARWATER, Fla. - They walked through the clubhouse, one behind the other. In front, the old manager in his usual attire: baseball pants, turf shoes, red ballcap. In back, the young outfielder in his street clothes. They did not speak, just marched around a corner and down a hallway before disappearing into an office with a door that closed behind them.

For 30 minutes, they talked.

What you will witness over the next 6 months is the rest of the story. Domonic Brown is at a pivotal point in his career with the Phillies. In some respects, you can't help but feel sorry for the kid. Charlie Manuel won't want to hear that. He's a baseball man, and baseball is all about paying your dues. You want to play in The Show, you better respect the game, respect the process. Sometimes, it can feel like The Process is trying to break you. And maybe it is. But it is still The Process, and virtually every player who has ever played beneath a third deck has endured it. You look around the Phillies clubhouse and see players like Ryan Howard, who was midway through his 25-year-old season before he finally got a full-time shot. You see Chase Utley, who played in 113 games at Triple A as a 24-year-old. And, of course, you see guys like Manuel, who was 31 years old when he finally gave up on major league baseball and headed over the Pacific to play in Japan.

Still, who hasn't felt what Domonic Brown was feeling on Friday after the Phillies sent him back to minor league camp? Who hasn't sworn to himself that all he needs is a chance? Brown entered spring training as one of the few people - perhaps the only person - in the Phillies organization who believed he was fighting for a job. When you are 24 years and talented, you do not abide by conventional wisdom. Especially when you look around the country and see 10, 15, 20 major league cities that would welcome you into the starting lineup the moment you arrived. That, as they say, is baseball. When the Phillies drafted Brown in the 20th round in 2006, they had not qualified for the postseason in 13 years. Their payroll was worth $10 million less than the contract Jonathan Papelbon signed this offseason to be the team's closer for the next 3 years. Now?

"We're not in the mode right now to develop guys at the major league level," general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. said.

And they aren't. Not with five straight National League East titles to defend. Not with one of the greatest rotations ever assembled. Not with an aging core that yearns for another World Series title.

The Phillies' desire to make him a leftfielder is understandable given the presence of Hunter Pence in right. Brown has struggled with the transition. Even to the untrained baseball eye, his unsteady play throughout the spring was easy to see. What we do not know is how fast he will learn, or what the Phillies' plan will be if his struggles continue during the first half of the minor league season.

Amaro says the team has not discussed moving Pence to left. The fact that he broke into the major leagues as a centerfielder might suggest he would struggle less with the transition than Brown. Then again, the arguments against such a switch are as numerous as they are valid. Pence is not the steadiest rightfielder in the league. He has never played left. And there is a reason he no longer plays center.

Not to mention the fact that Brown still had some work to do at his natural position in right. Or the fact that he did not come close to replicating his gaudy minor league numbers during his two brief stints with the Phillies.

Left or right, it is hard to argue that Brown is a finished product. But it is just as hard to argue definitively that the Phillies are playing the proper hand. Player development is an inexact science. Maybe Brown just needs to play regularly in leftfield. Maybe he will be able to make a seamless transition back to right if the experiment fails. Or maybe he winds up so overwhelmed that he joins the long list of prospects to be deemed in need of a change of scenery.

In the end, talent tends to prevail. And Brown has the talent. It is easy to say he struggled during his 56-game stint in the majors last season, but his .245 average was exactly the same as the one posted by the 16-year veteran the Phillies started in leftfield. His .333 on-base percentage was 44 points higher. He walked more often, struck out less often and hit home runs right around the average MLB rate. Plenty of prospects have earned themselves extended looks with performances equal or worse. And plenty of those prospects have moved on to enjoy considerable big-league success.

In a perfect world, Brown will make it easy on them. He will develop a good enough feel for leftfield that moves him back into the organizational on-deck circle. He will rediscover the swing that abandoned him over the last 2 months of last season. He will emerge as a serious candidate to once again be granted the chance he feels he needs.

But it is not a perfect world, and there is a chance that the Phillies end up having to make some tough decisions 3 months from now. Do they move him back to rightfield? Do they move him to another organization for the major league help the offense might need? Or do they find that his defensive shortcomings look a lot more palatable with an offense that continues to struggle at midseason?

Know this: While Brown may have lacked polish in rightfield, the Phillies still found a way to go 33-16 in his 49 starts last season. Over a 162-game season, that equates to 109 wins, or seven more than the total with which they finished. That does not mean that Brown was responsible for the difference. But it does mean that his defense did not present a fatal flaw to an otherwise championship team.

The Phillies chose to go with the known commodity, putting Pence in rightfield and Brown learning a new position in the minors. From an objective standpoint, the decision was a sensible one. That doesn't make it easier to swallow for an elite athlete like Brown. That that is The Process. Now, we wait to see if he finishes it on his terms.

Contact David Murphy at murphyd@phillynews.com