Phils Have A Low Budget, High Hopes For New Season Pitchers And Catchers Report For Spring Training Tomorrow. Gm Ed Wade Is Optimistic.

CLEARWATER, Fla. — As morning gave way to afternoon yesterday in this gulfside town where the Phillies have come to train for more than 50 years, gray clouds rolled in and covered empty Jack Russell Stadium in a blanket of chilly gloom.

Some might have found the backdrop symbolic of the team's prospects for success this season.

Sandy Alderson, Major League Baseball's executive vice president, might have been one of those people.

It was a little more than two months ago, on the day the Dodgers signed pitcher Kevin Brown to an earth-rattling $105 million contract, that an indignant Alderson shook his head at the growing financial disparity among baseball's 30 teams and uttered this ominous sentence: ``Eighteen teams will report to spring training in February knowing they have no chance.''

Clearly, the Phillies would have to be considered one of the No-Chance 18. Their opening-day payroll is expected to be under $30 million - far below the game's big and even medium-range spenders - and it remains to be seen whether several off-season trades have improved the team.

Welcome to spring training 1999, Phillies fans.

As he ran through final preparations before camp opens for pitchers and catchers tomorrow morning, Phillies general manager Ed Wade refused to buy into the prophecy that the modest-spending Phils have, as Alderson said, no chance in 1999.

Instead, Wade chose to recall a comment Alderson made several years earlier, when he was still general manager of the small-market Oakland A's.

``I remember Sandy saying, `I served in Vietnam. The highest payroll doesn't always win,' '' Wade said. ``When Sandy was in this position, he wasn't ready to concede anything. And I can tell you right now, [manager] Terry Francona and I aren't ready to concede anything.''

Wade said he understood the point Alderson was trying to make the day the Dodgers broke the $100 million barrier.

``He was pointing out the grim reality that the differences in payroll are becoming so profound that some teams will have a tough time competing,'' Wade said.

``But that doesn't mean we're not going to go like crazy these next six weeks and put the best club we can on the field. If we approach this job like we have no chance, then it's time to give the job to someone else.''