Philadelphia Phillies Top Prospect Earns Invite to Spring Training

Philadelphia Phillies top prospect Andrew Painter has earned an invite to major league spring training, per a report from reporter Scott Lauber.

Pitchers and catchers report to spring training in Clearwater, Fla., about one month from now.

Andrew Painter, Justin Crawford, and Aidan Miller headline the #Phillies' 23 non-roster invitees to spring training, the team announced Tuesday.
— Scott Lauber (@ScottLauber) January 14, 2025

Painter is currently ranked as the No. 32 prospect in all of baseball, per MLB.com. He is the No. 2 prospect in the Phillies organization. The team is certainly excited about his prospects and development, but they will be understandably careful with him after he missed all of 2023 and 2024 with arm injury. He felt discomfort early in 2023 and then attempted to come back, before ultimately undergoing Tommy John surgery.

He made a sterling return in the Arizona Fall League this past year, getting named the top pitcher in the developmental league. He threw 15.2 innings.

Part of having him in big-league camp is probably for the sake of monitoring his workload and keeping him healthy. It's unknown yet how the Phillies will use him this season. They could give him short starts in the minor leagues at the beginning of the year in order to use him as a starter later in the season, or they could build him up in the minor leagues before bringing him to the major league bullpen for the stretch run.

The Phillies already have five starters with Zack Wheeler, Aaron Nola, Christopher Sanchez, Ranger Suarez and Jesus Luzardo.

The Phillies won the National League East in 2024 but were beaten in the NLDS by the New York Mets.

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