Phillies make first cuts, pare roster down to 44

There aren't expected to be a lot of surprises in Spring Training this year for the Phillies. Besides the battle for the 5th spot in the rotation and barring a tremendous showing by one of the young bats, the Phillies Opening Day roster is nearly set in stone. Having so little on the line makes for a pretty uneventful and calm spring in the major league camp.

The Phillies did make their first cuts today, reassigning 14 players to the minor league camp. The most notable among them was Scott Mathieson, who has had two Tommy John surgeries and had a decent chance at landing a spot in the bullpen. The Phillies likely feel that Mathieson needs to get some more innings of work in before they can commit a bullpen spot to him. Barring another arm injury, Mathieson should be back up with the big club at some point this season.

The rest of the Phillies cuts are not surprises: pitchers Phillippe Aumont, Yohan Flande, Drew Naylor, J.C. Ramirez, Jesus Sanchez, Joe Savery and Bill White, catchers Tuffy Goeswisch, Kevin Nelson and John Suomi, shortstop Freddy Galvis, outfielders Quintin Berry and Tyson Gillies. You may recognize three of those players from the Cliff Lee deal (Aumont, Ramirez, Gillies) but none of them had even an outside chance at a major league spot.

The Phillies are now left with 44 players at the major league camp, meaning they have 19 more cuts to go.