What has earned your attention so far in Phillies camp?

Making any kind of conclusion this early into Spring Training is foolhardy. There’s not much that occurs before the calendar even flips to March that can be used to glean insight on how a player will perform once the games begin to count. But that doesn’t mean there can’t be something that catches your eye this early and causes you to look a little closer the rest of the spring.

One such thing is Justin Crawford and his new swing. Crawford’s swing looks drastically different than it did when he was in camp a year ago, as our Anthony Esbensen pointed out in his notes column from last weekend. Crawford seemingly altering his swing to add more lift to the ball is encouraging, even if it’s way too early to tell if the adjustment will finally help him cure his groundball issues. Again, it’s hard to judge anything on the first spring game of the season, but Crawford ripped a home run foul in his first at-bat before hitting a 104 MPH double off the wall in the opposite field gap in the same at-bat. Overall, Crawford is 2-9 with three strikeouts in three spring games.

On the pitching side, Kyle Backhus has caught some eyes with his velocity jump. The funky left-hander’s name has been mentioned by some of those in camo as someone who has impressed so far, and after his first performance, it’s easy to see why. Backhus’ sinker averaged 91 MPH last season, but in his first Grapefruit League appearance, Backhus averaged 92 MPH and touched 94. He quickly retired the side in that appearance on just 10 pitches, nine of which were strikes. He followed that up with another good performance in his second appearance, tossing another scoreless inning and erasing a single with a double play. Backhus is in contention for one of the last two spots in the Phillies bullpen and the third left hander role. If he continues to pitch like that, it will be hard to not put him on the Opening Day roster.

It’s the little things that can capture your attention this early. Not necessarily harbingers of what’s to come, but things that could potentially bode well. So, what has earned your attention so far in Phillies camp?