Andrew Painter was born in April of 2003, during the first month of the final season that the Philadelphia Phillies played at Veterans Stadium.
As hard as it may be to believe, though, there seems to be a belief both inside and outside the Phillies organization that the 19-year-old isn’t far off from making an impact at the majors.
In fact, Bob Nightengale of USA Today says that he spoke to “several veteran scouts” that believe Painter will join the Phillies rotation at some point in 2023. One of them went as far as saying that “he’s one of their five best starters right now. He’s going to be special.”
Whether or not he’s one of the five best starters in the Phillies organization currently, Painter does appear to be in play for the majors at some point in 2023.
When meeting with the media prior to the Aug. 2 trade deadline, president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski all-but guaranteed that some of the top young arms in the organization — seemingly referring to Painter, Mick Abel and Griff McGarry — will be invited to Major League Spring Training in 2023. And from there, one would think any of that trio could play a role for the team at some point, even if it isn’t the first turn through the starting rotation.
“The strength of our organization right now is our young starting pitching,” Dombrowski told the media in the Phillies dugout in late July. “It’s a very talented group of young starting pitchers. And the other thing I’ve found about talented young starting pitchers — and you can check back where I’ve been — sometimes they get to the big leagues very fast. I’m not saying this year, but there are some people that could be competing for spots next year that are youngsters. I’ve had no problem pitching guys who are 20 years old and having a lot of success and putting them in the big leagues. And they’re that good that some of those guys could be pitching here.”
There will likely be some innings up for grabs. Kyle Gibson’s 4.45 ERA certainly doesn’t jump off the page, but there will be a market for someone that’s thrown 145 or more innings on eight occasions. Will the Phillies be the team that ultimately presents the best situation for the 34-year-old given that they have a slew of young arms looming?
Noah Syndergaard hasn’t turned out to be an impact addition, but he still has provided 47 innings since being acquired from the Los Angeles Angels in early August. Now the odd-man-out of the starting rotation, it feels pretty unlikely that Syndergaard will be back with the Phillies in 2023.
Zack Wheeler, Aaron Nola and Ranger Suárez seem like locks to be in the rotation to start for the 2023 season, and Bailey Falter has probably pitched himself into an opportunity to begin the campaign with the Phillies as well.
Who will fill the No. 5 spot? Maybe it will be someone internal like Cristopher Sánchez. The Phillies could sign a low-risk, potentially high-reward veteran like they did with Chase Anderson and Matt Moore prior to 2021, hoping to get better results than they did with either of those two.
But by the dog days of summer, it may prove to be a moot point. There’s likely someone that’s going to open the 2023 season in the starting rotation for the Phillies, ultimately just keeping it warm until the Phillies decide to promote Painter.
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