With Philadelphia Phillies fans now counting down the days until pitchers and catchers report to spring training next month, the first indications that baseball is ready to re-enter our collective daily existence will soon be more than just wishful thinking. With a handful of new players for fans to get to know and love (or not), and plenty of competition expected in camp at a few key positions, everyone is ready to see if the Phillies have sufficiently improved after cratering in the NLDS at the hands of the New York Mets last October.
While curious eyes will certainly scan across the diamond to see if Phillies president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski's quartet of offseason additions are enough to reinforce a veteran roster that has so far failed to deliver on the promise of winning a World Series title over the last three seasons, it's hard not to be optimistic with a starting rotation that at least on paper, looks to be the deepest starting five the Phillies have had at any point during this recent competitive run.
For diehard fans worried about how Phillies' top pitching prospect Andrew Painter will fit into the equation in 2025, the team's No. 2 prospect (32nd overall in MLB) will likely be ready to contribute to the big club as early as July of this upcoming season, and the possibility of the Phillies employing a six-man rotation late in the season can't entirely be ruled out.
Coming on the heels of a jaw-dropping performance in the Arizona Fall League that led to Painter being named AFL Pitcher of the Year after recording an ERA of 2.30 and stifling hitters to the tune of a .182 batting average, talent evaluators and the wider baseball universe are clearly convinced that Painter's arm has bounced back completely from undergoing Tommy John surgery in 2023. With that said, Painter's previous high ceiling of becoming a top-of-the-rotation force for the Phillies for years to come seems to be back on track.
Andrew Painter voted to have the best fastball by MLB executives
This offseason has provided plenty of superlatives for the hard-throwing 21-year-old flamethrower, and a recent ranking of top MLB prospects did little to pump the breaks on the Painter hype train after MLB.com's Jonathan Mayo reported that in an anonymous poll of MLB front office executives, Painter was rated to be the fourth-best pitching prospect in the game right now, and perhaps could have been ranked even higher if not for Painter being mostly MIA from pitching in game action for majority of last season.
In addition to being named the fourth-best pitching prospect, Painter came out on top in a separate poll regarding which prospects currently showcase the best tools. Executives were tasked with rating which pitching prospect had the best fastball, with Painter earning an impressive 19.6 percent of the vote. It's a clear sign that Painter's upper 90s velocity is considered elite.
"Andrew Painter may have missed two years following Tommy John surgery, but anyone who saw him in the Arizona Fall League should have no problem with him topping this list," wrote Mayo." It was up to triple digits, it was explosive and outside of one or two outings in which he didn’t have pinpoint control of it, he threw it where he wanted to."
While Phillies fans will have to wait a little while longer before seeing how Painter's top-rated fastball plays against established MLB hitters, it's clear that his fastball and secondary pitches don't leave a lot of question marks with MLB executives and astute talent evaluators. With spring training slowly creeping up on the horizon, it's just a matter of time before fans will finally get to see what all the hype is about surrounding Andrew Painter.