Phillies’ next ‘dominant duo’? Mick Abel and Andrew Painter poised to climb the ranks together

CLEARWATER, Fla. — Mick Abel was killing time at home in Oregon last February, eight months after the Phillies drafted him 15th overall, when he and his dad fired up the computer to watch one of the best teenage pitchers in the country in his first start of the season for a Florida high school.

That was Abel’s first look at Andrew Painter.

“It was pretty weak,” Abel said Thursday, letting out a booming laugh. “No, I’m kidding.”

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“It was my worst start of the year,” Painter said. “It was brutal.”

Abel shrugged.

“[If] you throw strikes,” he said, “sometimes they’re going to get hit.”

It was the sort of back-and-forth that Abel and Painter might have over Pizookies, their favorite cookie dessert, on Tuesday nights at BJ’s Restaurant & Brewhouse, their preferred chain restaurant within range of the Phillies’ spring training complex. Or between drills as their cleats clickety-clack on the pavement leading from one practice field to another. Or when they sit around and play video games.

Abel and Painter have become fast friends since they met in September. It makes sense. They have a lot in common.

As pitchers, they are practically twins — 20 months apart in age, right-handed, with matching four-pitch repertoires. As the Phillies’ most recent first-round picks, they represent the organization’s best hope for a homegrown 1-2 punch atop the rotation since Gavin Floyd and Cole Hamels two decades ago.

Oh, and they almost certainly will be joined at the hip as they ascend the minor-league ranks together beginning this season.

Abel and Painter came here this week with 57 fellow mini-campers to get a head start on training for the minor-league season. The major-leaguers who ordinarily would be streaming into spring training sites in Florida and Arizona are locked out by team owners during the plodding negotiations of a new collective bargaining agreement.

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It leaves plenty of time for attending Phillies officials, including president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski, manager Joe Girardi, and pitching coach Caleb Cotham, to daydream about a 2024 rotation headed by Abel and Painter.

The pitchers have thought about it, too.

“All the time,” Abel said. “Both of us, the goal is to reach the big leagues and have a nice, long career. Doing it together, it’s a dominant duo right there. We’ve still got time and we’ve still got a lot of work to do, but it’s definitely something I see.”

Abel, 20, is 6-foot-5 and skinny, with a fastball that scrapes 98 mph. Scouts have a hard time deciding which of his three off-speed pitches (slider, curveball, and changeup) is the nastiest.

Painter, who turns 19 in April, is 6-foot-7 and broad-shouldered, with a heater that reaches 95 mph. He also has a curveball, changeup, and slider, with many scouts rating the curveball slightly ahead of the others.

Their paths finally crossed in October at the Phillies’ instructional league in Florida. It’s where they began to bond, with Painter peppering Abel with questions about life in pro ball. Each is the other’s measuring stick, whether it’s comparing how they grip their changeups to sharing notes on their deliveries.

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“Abel and Painter, those guys are as good as any two pitchers in anybody’s system,” first-year farm director Preston Mattingly said. “I think they have a chance to be top-of-the rotation starters. They have the stuff. Everything’s there. So it’s on our staff, and it’s on our organization, to groom them and move in the right direction.”

This year, that involves building a workload to withstand the rigors of a full season.

Abel’s senior season in high school and first minor-league season were erased by the pandemic. The Phillies monitored him closely last season, but he still strained his rotator cuff after 44⅔ innings for low-A Clearwater and was shut down in late July.

Painter, drafted 14th overall in June, made his professional debut in September and retired 17 of 21 batters in six scoreless, walk-free innings in rookie ball.

Painter said he would have preferred to make more than four abbreviated starts last summer after signing for $3.9 million, $175,000 less than Abel in 2020. But he agreed with the Phillies’ deliberate approach, as they acclimated him from the seven-day routine in high school to pitching every five days in pro ball.

“I think it was good how we went about it,” Painter said. “I would’ve liked to get a couple more innings, but it just wasn’t smart from a health standpoint to kind of rush it.”

Abel put it another way, one that Philly sports fans will understand.

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“Joel Embiid said it best: You’ve got to trust the process,” he said. “We’re both young. We have high expectations. But we have to take our time and realize we can’t get too far ahead of ourselves or else something bad might happen.

“Just trust the process and kind of go along with it and try your hardest to get better every day. Try to get 1% better every day.”