How the Phillies are creating a road map to get the most out of Andrew Painter now and long term

The 19-year-old Painter is the Phillies' most valuable asset over the next six years. That makes balancing his 2023 impact with his future interests vital.

Phillies pitching prospect Andrew Painter, 19, will enter spring training with a chance to crack the starting rotation.Read moreCourtesy of the Reading Fightin’ Phils

by Scott Lauber

Published Feb. 3, 2023, 5:00 a.m. ET

Scott Boras represents a handful of Phillies players. So, the prominent agent’s offseason conversations with president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski centered as much on Bryce Harper’s healing elbow, Nick Castellanos’ hitting program, and Rhys Hoskins’ status beyond 2023 as any prospective free-agent signing.

But when Boras came to town in December for pitcher Taijuan Walker’s introductory news conference, he met with Dombrowski about a teenager who hasn’t reached the majors yet.

Andrew Painter is on everyone’s mind these days — and not just because Baseball America recently crowned him the top pitching prospect in the sport. The 6-foot-7 right-hander is, quite likely, one of the 13 best pitchers in the Phillies organization right now, so the National League champs will give him a chance over the next two months to win the No. 5 starter job in his first big-league camp.

It’s heady stuff, especially for a 19-year-old (Painter will turn 20 on April 10). Over the last 30 years, only two 19-year-olds — Julio Urías in 2016 and Felix Hernández in 2006 — pitched in a major-league starting rotation. Painter has also thrown a grand total of 109⅔ innings as a professional — and only 28⅓ above the A-ball level — since getting drafted 13th overall in 2021.

The decision, then, about whether Painter breaks camp with the major-league team will be multilayered and go beyond his spring training ERA relative to Bailey Falter or Cristopher Sánchez. There will be workload considerations and debate over how aggressively to push a young pitcher. Because a homegrown, minimum-salaried ace is akin to a winning Powerball ticket, even for a team with a $250 million payroll.

Could Painter win games for the Phillies this year? Probably.

Is he their most valuable asset over the next six years? Definitely, more than even Harper, J.T. Realmuto, or Trea Turner. It will be paramount, then, to balance Painter’s potential short-term impact with looking out for his and the team’s long-term interests.

“There’s a whole group of pitchers that came to the big leagues at young ages, and the back half of their careers, at 30 and beyond, were not good,” said Boras, who counts Painter among his clients. “We’ve seen [Fernando] Valenzuela, [Madison] Bumgarner, [Dwight] Gooden, Felix Hernández in Seattle, we’ve seen these guys be brilliant at 22, 23, 24, and then, because their bodies weren’t mature, that brilliance didn’t continue.

“What we’ve got to do is work out a plan for Andrew that allows him to compete at this level but not to where we treat him like he’s a 27-, 28-, 29-year-old major leaguer. There’s an innings component that we’ve got to really advance to do that.”

Internally, Phillies officials are already developing that road map.

What’s past is prologue

Based on reams of data gathered over the last two decades, the generally accepted guideline within the pitching community is that a year-over-year innings bump of 30% represents a safe way to build a workload for starting pitchers who are under 25 years old.

“I’d say that’s kind of what I work from,” Phillies pitching coach Caleb Cotham said by phone. “Just as a starting point.”

Cotham said he has gotten only two in-person looks at Painter on the mound in a game, none since last spring. Manager Rob Thomson has not yet seen Painter pitch live. But watching hours of internal video — “And all the video on Twitter,” Cotham noted — confirmed the information they’ve gotten from the Phillies’ minor-league staff and the trainers at Cressey Sports Performance, an elite-level facility in South Florida where Painter works out in the offseason amid star pitchers such as Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer.

“He’s as good as every report and ranking says,” Cotham said. “He can get big-league hitters out. There’s no doubt in my mind.”

That said, Cotham embarked this winter on a research project, digging up recent examples of young pitchers who came to the big leagues after a brief time in the minors. He studied when they arrived, how they were handled, and most importantly, whether it worked.

Take, for instance, Hunter Greene. A first-round pick out of high school, he made the Reds’ opening-day roster as a 22-year-old last year after pitching 106⅓ innings in the minors in 2021. He made every start through the middle of July, averaging five innings and 91 pitches per start and posting a 5.78 ERA. But despite a 10-day breather around the All-Star break, he landed on the injured list in August with a strained right shoulder.

Greene returned after a 46-day absence and closed out the season with a 0.78 ERA in four starts. He finished with a 4.44 mark in 125⅔ innings. Add in a triple-A rehab start and he pitched 132⅔ innings, a 24.5% increase from 2021.

There were other notable examples last season.

George Kirby: The Mariners didn’t call him up until May, but the 24-year-old pitched 130 innings over 25 major-league starts and 156⅔ innings in all, a Carl Lewis-like leap from 67⅔ innings in the minors in 2021. It probably helped that he got two weeks off in July. He posted a 3.02 ERA in the second half en route to a 3.39 ERA mark overall.

Reid Detmers: A six-man rotation made it easier for the Angels to manage the 22-year-old’s workload. But he still experienced the extremes of throwing a 108-pitch no-hitter on May 10 and getting optioned to triple A six weeks later. He worked 129 innings in the majors and 135 overall, a 64.2% hike from his 2021 total.

Spencer Strider: Last year’s most successful integration of a young starter began in the Braves’ bullpen. The 23-year-old made 11 mostly multi-inning relief appearances, then moved to the rotation after Memorial Day. He got to 131⅔ innings, a 36.5% bump from his Painter-like ascendance through the minors in 2021. But Strider also missed time late in the season with a strained oblique muscle in his side.

Cotham said his biggest takeaway was that there isn’t a one-size-fits-all blueprint. Every pitcher is unique based on body type, mechanics, and adherence to an effective between-starts conditioning plan. An organization might develop what it considers to be best practices. But the ones that effectively bring pitching prospects to the majors are willing to adapt on the fly.

“You’re looking at what those guys did and the performance over the full season. Did it work? Did they fall off?” Cotham said. “But I don’t want to overvalue what other people have done because it’s so individualized. You start with that idea and just iterate over the season to see what feels good.

“Andy’s young. I don’t know if we have a hard-and-fast number, but I’d say 30% — 30 more innings for him, essentially — would be something we’re shooting for. I don’t want to ask him to do more than he’s capable of doing or something that’s never been done because he’s got a long career. But you’re not saying that can’t happen, either.”

Finish what you start

If the Phillies are estimating 135 innings for Painter, is it realistic for him to start the season in the rotation and also finish it?

“That’s definitely a possibility,” Cotham said. “I don’t know if I have the answer. If it’s a full season, obviously we’d have to manage the workload in some way. But it’s first what’s best for Andy and then simultaneously what’s best for the team. I’d say everything’s on the table to some degree.”

Last year, the Phillies created a schedule that enabled Painter and other touted prospects, such as Mick Abel and Griff McGarry, to maintain a rigorous between-starts routine and also build a workload. Starters in A-ball pitched once a week, but were also conditioned to get into the sixth, and occasionally the seventh, inning.

The Phillies also gave Painter a three-week break in June. After completing the sixth inning twice in his first 10 starts, he got through at least six innings six times and into the seventh four times in his last 12 starts.

Maybe a similar strategy is feasible at the major-league level. The Phillies could manage Painter’s innings by splitting some of his starts with another pitcher (possibly McGarry, thereby watching his workload, too). They could try a six-man rotation, a scenario that Thomson said is likely at various points in the season. Creativity almost certainly will be required.

But the Phillies also will base their approach with Painter on measurable data. A dip in velocity is no longer the leading indicator of fatigue and potential injury risk. Teams look at spin rates, arm angles, elbow and trunk flexion, and even time between pitches, all of which can be instructive.

Much of that data wasn’t available when Rick Porcello reached the majors. He was 20 when he broke camp with the Dombrowski-built Detroit Tigers in 2009 despite throwing 125 innings in his only year in the minors — A-ball, no less. He worked 170⅔ innings to begin a 12-year career in which he averaged 174 innings per season but also retired at age 31.

“There were definitely times where I didn’t feel as fresh,” Porcello said in a recent phone interview. “The longest stretch that you go without a break is the beginning of spring training up to the All-Star break. Those two, three, four starts prior to the break were probably my most difficult in terms of feeling like I was under water. Once I got to the break, I felt pretty refreshed and recovered.

“But I think it’s a mistake to classify everyone into a generalized workload because each individual is different. A guy’s stuff will always have its peaks and valleys. The game has definitely changed in that regard. It looks a lot more at maintaining those peaks and not as tolerant of maybe a dip in velocity or a spin-rate dip.”

It’s all part of the process with the Phillies’ most talented homegrown pitcher since Cole Hamels.

“You have your best practice and answers to what you’re thinking about going in, and you’re just adaptable,” Cotham said. “The No. 1 rule is it’s got to work. Because he’s really good and he’s going to get better. He’s special.”