Will the Phillies be baseball's biggest loser?

FOUR YEARS AGO, Chase Utley was the only player on the short field that sits on the left side of the front entrance to Bright House Field.

He was fielding ground balls. It doesn't sound like anything unordinary until you add in the fact that Utley was going through the routine while seated on a bucket due to a chronic knee ailment.

A year later, Utley would be joined by Ryan Howard on the spring sideline following Achillies' surgery. The two biggest pieces in the Phillies' lineup were dealing with career-altering injuries and their readiness for the 2012 season was in question throughout the team's stay in Clearwater, Fla.

The summer that followed turned into the beginning of the end of the greatest era in Phillies history. Five straight division championships, two trips to the World Series and a world championship . . . and then a .500 season in 2012 followed by consecutive 89-loss seasons.

Utley and Howard are still with the team, along with Cole Hamels and Carlos Ruiz, the last remnants of the 2008 championship club. The Phillies are rebuilding.

So why are these guys still here? That's among the burning questions on the eve of the day pitchers and catchers report to camp in Clearwater.

*  "You're still here? It's over. Go home."

After the closing credits rolled on "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," Ferris poked his head out of the bathroom and delivered that memorable line, which could just as easily be used in the Phillies' current situation. Howard, Utley and Co. are likely to take the field 6 weeks from Monday, when the Phillies open the 2015 season at Citizens Bank Park against the Boston Red Sox.

The Phillies' front office officially committed to a rebuilding phase 4 months ago and began that process in earnest over the holidays, when it jettisoned Jimmy Rollins, the longest-tenured athlete in Philadelphia, along with Marlon Byrd and Antonio Bastardo in trades that brought back promising minor league pitching depth. But after three trades in 2 weeks, it was as if the front office pulled the emergency brake.

Despite the chatter, Hamels wasn't traded. Jonathan Papelbon wasn't dealt to a contender. Ryan Howard wasn't discarded.

We've already used this space to explain each individual situation more than a couple of times this winter; the aforementioned players cannot be traded easily, or at all. (Utley has a full no-trade clause.)

But rebuilds are rarely done overnight. You cannot wave a magic wand and make all of your unwanted players go away.

The Chicago Cubs had the most wins in the National League in 2008. Last season, they finished with the same number of wins as the Phillies (73) en route to their fifth consecutive fifth-place finish in the NL Central.

The Cubs were able to shed unwanted and overpaid veterans over that half-decade, however, while also putting together a stable of formidable prospects. They complemented that young crop by adding proven veterans this winter. They're expected to be a serious contender within a year.

The Phils' own rebuild is in its infancy stage. If they're able to move Papelbon, Howard, Cliff Lee and even Hamels - if the price is right - it will surely help move the process along. That could happen as soon as this summer.

But real rebuilds take more than a few months.

* Whither Ryan Howard?

So your boss came out and publicly admitted to anyone who was willing to listen that he told you his business would be better if you were no longer around. And your parents and your brothers have been trying to rob you of your life's work in millions of dollars. And your body has betrayed you in the last 4 years, making you unable to perform at your best.

Surely there are few people in the Delaware Valley who will feel any sympathy for a professional athlete who will earn $25 million in 2015, but Ryan Howard has had a pretty tough go for the last few years. Money cannot buy happiness, but it can apparently tear apart a family, infuriate a fan base and crush a person's spirit.

But general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. wasn't wrong when he said the Phillies would be better without Howard in 2015. Not because Howard can't contribute anymore - but because the Phillies have younger players at their disposal who can play first base, young players the team needs to see more of in 2015 to evaluate their plans for the future.

It would benefit Howard, too, to find a new place to play this year. The Phillies were aggressive in attempting to find the former MVP a new home, but there weren't any takers.

On May 2, Howard's 10-5 rights kick in (at least 10 years in the big leagues, at least 5 with his current team), meaning he'll have a full no-trade clause. It's difficult to see him utilizing that, however, since a new team will likely mean an opportunity to revive his career. Keep an eye on the Baltimore Orioles, who lost two bats on the free-agent market early this winter and have made a habit of continuing their offseason shopping into March in recent seasons.

* What can Brown do for you?

Those are the words that appear on the upper right biceps of enigmatic outfielder Domonic Brown. The Phillies have a lot of on-the-field questions as the 2015 season begins - for instance, can Freddy Galvis be an everyday big-league shortstop? - but there isn't one that seems as important for the team's rebuild than the one that is tattooed on Brown's arm.

While there are no sure bets, the Phillies did increase their chances of putting together a competitive pitching rotation in the near future (2017?) by acquiring four pitching prospects this winter in trades, to go along with draftees like Aaron Nola and Jesse Biddle. But, beyond J.P. Crawford and Maikel Franco, there isn't much offensive help on the way. And both Franco and Crawford are infielders.

If the Phillies hope to contend again as soon as 2017, they need Brown to pull a Jayson Werth and finally realize his natural talent as he enters his late 20s. A late bloomer is better than a former prospect who never blooms at all.

The good news for Brown: Since the Phillies no longer are holding out hope that they can contend, as they tried unsuccessfully in the last 2 years, he'll no longer have to look over his shoulder in fear of being replaced. He'll play regularly. But it's on him to make the most of that opportunity, or else what Brown can do is find a new place to play in 2016.

* Is this the worst team in baseball?

Last month, the number crunchers at the saber-heavy website Baseball Prospectus projected that the Phillies would have the worst record in baseball in 2015. Last week, the oddsmakers at Atlantis Casino in Reno, Nev., concurred: They had the Phillies' over/under win total at 67, the lowest in baseball. Baseball Prospectus, by the way, had that number at 69.

The Phillies have not won fewer than 70 games since 2000, when Ron Gant was patrolling leftfield, Desi Relaford was at shortstop, and the likes of Omar Daal and Ken Bottenfield were making regular starts in the season's final 2 months.

Will it be that bad in 2015? Probably.

The Phillies scored three runs or fewer in exactly half of their games (81) last season. And that was before they replaced their former MVP shortstop (Rollins) with a career .218 hitter (Galvis) and before they also traded their team home-run leader from 2014 (Byrd).

Unless Brown re-emerges as a middle-of-the-order threat, or Howard stays and remembers how to collect extra-base hits, and Galvis and Cody Asche mature into productive pieces at the plate, and Franco pushes everyone for playing time with his prodigious power, the Phillies are going to struggle to top last year's paltry production of being unable to score four or more runs in half of their games.

And we haven't even brought up pitching yet. A promising bullpen doesn't mean a thing if you have a rotation full of question marks after Hamels. If Hamels is traded by the deadline, get ready for a repeat of those Daal-Bottenfield days at the ballpark.

* Is Amaro on the hot seat? Ryne Sandberg? Anyone?

In professional sports, managers/coaches and front-office people lose their jobs when their teams don't succeed. It's just the reality of business. Charlie Manuel was the first fall guy when the Phillies began to break bad.

But there isn't any evidence that the Phillies are considering moving on from Amaro just yet. The embattled general manager is under contract for the 2015 season; that was the excuse current team president Pat Gillick used in September, when he was in an interim role.

Amaro is not under contract for 2016.

But Gillick said as recently as Friday that Amaro has done "a nice job" this winter in having a "tremendous amount of dialogue" with other teams in an attempt to make trades. Gillick said the rebuild was an "ongoing process" and that Amaro will continue to try to change the roster as the 2015 season gets underway.

But Gillick has bosses, too.

When the season does get underway, there will be a sea of blue seats staring at their perch in the owner's box. Patience is a virtue, but they cannot ignore the possible public-relations nightmare of watching a team flirt with 100 losses while a fan base revolts amid inactivity at the upper levels of the organization.

It's difficult to see manager Sandberg becoming a scapegoat. Whether or not Amaro succeeds in finding a new home for Hamels (and Papelbon, Lee, Howard, etc.), the GM will almost have to begin to feel the heat in 2015.