Who has surprised Dombrowski this spring?

This story was excerpted from Todd Zolecki’s Phillies Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

Before president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski made the trek to Florida’s east coast for the Phillies’ Grapefruit League game on Friday night against the Astros, he chatted for a few minutes about a few spring storylines as Opening Day ticks closer.

A few highlights:

MLB.com: Has anything or anybody surprised you this spring?

Dombrowski: I have a good feeling about some of our young starting pitching depth. Some of them are a little bit closer to pitching in the big leagues. We like our starting pitching depth in general, with some of the guys we added late.

We really like [right-hander Tyler] Phillips a lot. We think he’s very, very close to pitching in the big leagues. [Right-hander Mick] Abel threw the ball great. He continues to make strides. I don’t want to call [right-hander Michael] Mercado a starter yet, but we’re going to stretch him out. We really like him a great deal. [Right-hander Ricardo] Pinto has thrown well. Other than his last outing, [right-hander Max] Castillo threw well. That doesn’t include [right-hander David] Buchanan, [left-hander Kolby] Allard. All of a sudden, there’s more names to choose from. But those first guys, Phillips, Abel -- they’re young, too. They’re young guys that could help us build a nice foundation to our pitching staff for years to come.

MLB.com: Johan Rojas has struggled at the plate this spring. Is there enough time before Opening Day to get him going?

Dombrowski: It’s a tough question, and it’s a tough question because it’s still Spring Training. So, I try not to make major decisions right now.

Rojas has been outstanding in the outfield. He has worked very, very hard. Where that leads him to make our club, I don’t know if I have a different response now than I did when camp opened. We’re just going to have to sit down and have a real serious [conversation]. … “OK, what’s best for us? What’s best for the kid?” We know that he can really play defense in center field. But we also have another real good defensive center fielder in [Cristian] Pache. So those are things that we have to discuss further, and I don’t know where that’s going to take us.

MLB.com: If Rojas makes the team, do you want your last bench player to hit left-handed? Or is that not a big deal?

Dombrowski: Again, those are conversations we still need to have. Nobody has jumped up and down and said, “We have to have a left-handed bat there.” But when we have our conversations, somebody may make that point. I know I have final say when it comes to setting the roster, but I really like to work with the manager on how he sees his club, how he sees his lineup, how it all fits together.

MLB.com: You have two bullpen jobs available. What are you looking for there?

Dombrowski: The beginning of the season represents some challenges in how you use your 13-man pitching staff. Even with our five starters, they’re not going to give you six to seven innings early, so you have a lot of innings to cover. And guys you option out [to the Minor Leagues in Spring Training] can’t be recalled until after 15 days of the season. So you’re always trying to figure out who’s going to pitch innings for you early. Normally during the season, there’s other people you can recall. But you can’t do that the first 15 days of the season. But you have to fill a certain number of innings and you don’t want all of your back-end, one-inning guys pitching in non-big situations for you early. All of that will weigh into the type of decisions that we make.

MLB.com: Guys without options come into play, right?

Dombrowski: Sure, it does. Out of options comes into play, but also the ability to pitch innings. That comes into play.