The Philadelphia Phillies have agreed to a minor league deal with outfielder David Lough, they announced on their Twitter account this afternoon.
#Phillies have signed OF David Lough to a minor league contract with an invitation to major league spring training.
— Phillies (@Phillies) January 25, 2016
Lough, 30, played in 84 games for the Baltimore Orioles in 2015, batting .201 with four homeruns and 14 RBI's. 2015 was his second season with the Orioles.
Prior to that, he had spent parts of two seasons with the Kansas City Royals, including batting .286 with five homeruns and five stolen-bases in 96 games in 2013.
As the team wrote in the announcement, he'll be invited to Spring Training, but has agreed to a minor-league deal. It's unclear if his deal has any opt-out clauses if he doesn't start the season on the big-league roster or isn't able to reach it by a certain date.
If not, Lough seems like the type of player that's likely to begin the season in the minor leagues and could be called up later in the season as injuries and other transactions occur.
Currently, the Phillies have Odubel Herrera, Aaron Altherr, Peter Bourjos, Cody Asche and Tyler Goeddel seemingly locked into five outfield spots. Most teams carry five outfielders, but if the Phillies choose to carry both Darin Ruf and Darnell Sweeney, part of their reasoning would be that the two are capable of playing the outfield. Given that the Phillies don't have a ton of certainty in their bullpen and they seem to have a six or seven guys competing for spots in a five-man starting rotation, it seems unlikely they will have room for a sixth outfielder (on top of Sweeney and Ruf) on the opening day roster.
