This is me telling you to trade for Andrew Painter as soon as y– oh, never mind, it’s too late.
- Born: April 10, 2003
- B/T: Right/Right
- 6’7″, 215-lbs
- Drafted by the Philadelphia Phillies in the 2021 MLB June Amateur Draft out of Calvary Christian H.S. (Ft. Lauderdale, FL)
The Numbers
His raw numbers are listed above courtesy of baseball-reference.com. Let’s aggregate by year then focus on the important numbers for minor leaguers:
I love the one red box in a sea of green that shows perfection in a pitching prospect. We’ll talk more about that in a bit.
Painter was a Florida High School kid who gets drafted in 2021 and placed in Rookie ball where he was more like a wrecking ball. At age 18.
This past year he started at A ball, again struck out close to 50% (!) of the batters he faced, inexplicably walked 11%, and had a WHIP Clayton Kershaw dreams about. So he has no control, right?
Wrong. He goes to High-A, cuts the walk rate more than in half, strikes out a third of those batters who are, on average, four years older than he is.
So off he goes to Double-A, his third level as a 19-year-old, and now the batters are literally more than a half decade older than him. Naturally he strikes out out the same 34% of those upper level batters, and only walks 2%, so are you happy about his walk rate now?
[Sarcasm] Oh no! His WHIP increases at every level! Why by the time it reaches the majors it might be over 1.000! He’s a bum! [/Sarcasm]
Monthly Splits
I dunno. It’s like after dropping a thermonuclear bomb on batters in April, he decided to have fun or something in May. By June the coaches sidled up to him, “Whaddup, dude? What’s with the walks?” Painter nodded, and in July simply stopped walking guys.
In the meantime look at that K% column! The guy strikes out 1/3 of the batters in his sleep. He wakes up in the morning and strikes out a third of his roommates before breakfast.
Handedness K% and BB%
A (vs RH): 49%K and 14%BB. (vs LH): 41%K and 6%BB.
A+ (vs RH): 38%K and 7%BB. (vs LH): 28%K and 2%BB.
AA (vs RH): 31%K and 6%BB. (vs LH): 36%K and 4%BB.
OK, so yeah, he’s dominant at every level, but the only consistent thing is he walks more righties than lefties.
Right-handers hit .193 against him in 2022, but left-handers had it worse than that: .163.
Basically if you hit left-handed, and you see Painter walking to the mound, that career offer of selling life insurance starts to look more appealing by the time you see strike two.
The Scouts
- Rotowire: #17 on their Top 400
- Fantrax: #28 on their Top 400
- RotoProspects: #13 on Top 500
Warnings
Um, he walked too many during a few weeks this past Spring?
That, uh, righties hit him harde— no, no, I just can’t say that with a straight face.
Conclusion
He has a high-90s fastball, a low-80s slider, a changeup that is effective, and he can throw them all for strikes, and he can wipe batters out with any of them.
He’s a teenager who could probably hold his own against major leaguers. Let that sink in.
The Phillies hint that with a strong spring he could make the Opening Day roster. If not, poor Triple-A batters will have to face him until, oh, May or June.
Painter is one of, if not the, best pitching prospects in baseball. He has ace potential.