Can Andrew Painter Win A Spot In The Phillies’ Rotation?

Over the next few weeks, the biggest storyline in Phillies camp will unfold, centering around 19-year-old Andrew Painter.

Phillies pitchers and catchers officially report to camp on Thursday, kicking off a spring training battle for the No. 5 starting job in the rotation. And, even if the team’s brass won’t say it, the inside track belongs to Painter, the top pitching prospect in the game, according to Baseball America.

Painter stands 6-foot-7. He throws a triple-digit fastball. His secondary offerings — a slider, curve and changeup — are advanced. He dominated three minor-league levels last year (1.56 ERA in 22 starts), topping out at Double-A Reading. And he won’t turn 20 until April 10; that’s 12 days after the season begins.

Check out the heater and the hook on this kid:

The reality of a teenager playing for the Phillies seems farfetched, especially since it hasn’t happened for the team in 43 years when pitcher Mark Davis debuted at 19 in 1980. But the president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski has said the Phillies were “keeping a spot open for a youngster” in the rotation. An unnamed team official also said he would be “shocked” if Painter “isn’t our No. 5 starter coming out of spring training.”

To win the starting job, Painter must outperform the competition, most notably lefty Bailey Falter, a dependable stand-in who compiled a 3.76 ERA in 16 starts last season.

Also competing for the No. 5 spot will be the team’s other top pitching prospects, Mick Abel and Griff McGarry. Cristopher Sanchez, who’s had stints with the big club in 2021 and ’22, is also in the mix for the job.

“Time will tell with Painter and McGarry and all of those guys,” Phillies manager Rob Thomson told the media in November. “They haven’t even pitched in a big-league spring training game yet, so we’ll let them do that first and see what the comfort level there is. Then it’s a whole other animal once you turn the lights on (at Citizens Bank Park) and pitch in this environment.”

If Painter wins the competition, the biggest concern would be his workload. He threw 103⅔ innings in the minors last year and threw only 6 innings in his debut minor-league season in 2021. So, how many more innings would the Phillies allow for his age-20 season?

A template to copy would be the Braves managing of Spencer Strider’s innings last year. Strider, a rookie in 2022, was used in a relief role for the first month-and-a-half of the season before Atlanta turned him loose at as a starter on May 30. Strider finished with 134 innings pitched, including one brief postseason outing against the Phillies (re: bat spike) in the NLDS.

And, yes, the Phillies envision following up their 2022 World Series run with another postseason push this year. So it would be wise to reduce Painter’s first-half workload for him to contribute late in the season.

But, first things first, the kid has to win the job.