PHILLY (Loosely Related to The Philadelphia Phillies)

Here's the thing lost in the service-time banter: The Phillies can have Kingery in the majors for almost all of the season and still delay his free agency until after the 2024 season. A year of service time is 172 days. Major League Baseball has elongated the 2018 schedule; the Phillies will play their 162-game season in 186 days. Kingery, in theory, could come to the majors on April 13 — for the Phillies' 13th game of the season. He would then spend 171 days in the majors, one day shy of a full year of service time.

There are potential barriers to that. For one, the players' union could have a strong objection to a club manipulating the service-time rules in such an obvious manner. Kingery, who has said all of the right things this spring about his financial future, could file a grievance against the Phillies. (Maikel Franco, whose free-agent clock was delayed by a full year because he was two days short of 172, did that.)

But those negative vibes are not apparent.

The Phillies have a blueprint from Kapler's previous employer, the Los Angeles Dodgers, who summoned top prospect Cody Bellinger last April 25 because of injuries at the major-league level. Bellinger stuck for the season. He played a bunch of left field before assuming his natural position, first base. He accrued 160 days of service time. Bellinger and Kingery are friends; they attended rival high schools in the Phoenix area.

There are other scenarios to make everyone whole: The Tampa Bay Rays delayed Evan Longoria's major-league debut in 2008 by 13 days but then signed him to a six-year contract just six games into his career. That deal guaranteed Longoria $17.5 million but was worth up to $44.5 million. The two sides later agreed to another extension, before the first deal expired.

That initial contract was struck in 2008, when pre-arb deals gained popularity across the game. There are other examples of players with less than a year of service time who signed long-term extensions — Tim Anderson, Salvador Perez, Matt Moore and Jonathan Singleton — but they have become less prevalent in recent years. The current tension between the league and players' union could discourage Kingery's camp from exploring a similar pact. To be clear, this is a hypothetical, and it is not known whether such an idea has even been broached.

“I understand, you have the business side of it, how it works where I get an extra year of control,” Kingery said. “I understand all that stuff.”