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CLEARWATER, Fla. — When baseball stopped for Andrew Painter, no one in the Phillies organization spent more time with him than Aaron Barrett. The two men throw with their right arms, which is where the similarities end.
Barrett was drafted four times — never higher than the ninth round — and he was not a prospect. He made it to the majors at 26 as a reliever with the Washington Nationals, and then blew out. He pushed through the arduous rehab from Tommy John surgery only to fracture the humerus in his right elbow.
Advertisement He kept going. He returned to the majors more than four years after his initial injury. All of this makes him uniquely qualified to run the rehab program for Phillies minor-league pitchers.
“With the things I went through,” Barrett said, “there’s going to be natural buy-in to that process. Because I lived it.” So, when handed Painter as a project, Barrett adjusted his thinking.
This was a special talent. Barrett challenged Painter — sometimes in a playful way, sometimes not. “My bar,” Barrett said, “was set higher for him.
” Painter, considered one of the best pitching prospects in baseball, toiled through the various benchmarks that followed his July 2023 Tommy John surgery. Playing catch. Flat ground work.
Long toss. Longer long toss. Then, when Painter stepped on a mound to throw again for the first time since surgery, Barrett stood behind him.
It was June 14, 2024. This was an important milestone for Painter, but far from the final step. “I (wasn’t) necessarily concerned about where the ball needs to be,” Barrett said.
“But ...
I remember it very, very vividly.” Painter threw only fastballs. It wasn’t max effort.
He made the ball go where he wanted it to go — 15 months after he had last appeared in a game. The Phillies measured Painter’s bullpen session with different devices. At the end, a nearby monitor showed a strike-zone plot of Painter’s throws.
“That’s different,” Barrett remembered thinking. He took out his phone. He had to snap a screenshot.
“I knew,” Barrett said, “I was working with someone that can be very, very special in this game.” Maybe it’s hyperbole to ascribe greatness to a rudimentary bullpen session that no one else saw. Painter is inching closer to his big-league debut, which should happen sometime this summer , and there are more boxes he must check.
But the Phillies believe Painter has emerged from this two-year process with a clearer understanding of who he is as a person and pitcher. Advertisement It’s why Painter also remembers that bullpen session. “Fifteen fastballs,” he said Thursday morning.
“They were all strikes. And none of them were middle-middle.” Painter smiled.
“Barrett might still have that screenshot,” Painter said. He sure does. The day Painter joined the rehab group — way back in March 2023 — Barrett greeted him.
“This process is going to change your life,” Barrett said. “That’s what I told him. He believed in it.
And it has.” Painter’s elbow hurt, but he hadn’t opted for surgery yet. “I’m not saying that he hasn’t failed in his life,” Barrett said, “but there hasn’t necessarily been a whole lot of adversity.
” This was true. Before the injury, Painter had pitched to a 1.48 ERA in 109 2/3 innings as a professional.
He had been a first-round pick. He was 19 years old and he was soaring. What was the biggest adversity he had faced? “I mean, I don’t know,” Painter said.
“Giving up five against (Double-A) Altoona? Probably something like that.” Barrett challenged Painter to find who he really was. Expectations are hard.
Everyone has high expectations for Painter; his expectations for himself are even higher. “I mean, he’s way more mature than I was at that age,” said left-hander Jesús Luzardo, his new teammate. “I view him as almost like we’re the same age.
” Luzardo is 27, more than five years older than Painter. They’ve known each other for a few years now. Luzardo, like Painter, underwent Tommy John surgery early in his career.
They have compared experiences. “It’s given him a better perspective,” Barrett said. “Once the game gets taken away from you, there’s a newfound respect for the little things.
Whether that’s as simple as literally like, ‘Hey, I get to play catch today.’ He’s coming back with a better outlook. “Obviously, he’s still 21.
He’s such a big kid and there’s such joy. One hard part for us, especially the business side of things: We lose sight that this is a game. Watching Andy go about his business and the way he competes, there’s such a joy to it.
It’s super refreshing. It’s meant to be that way.” Last December, Caleb Cotham drove to the Germantown neighborhood in Nashville for lunch.
Painter was in town for some workouts. He wasn’t throwing. But Cotham, the Phillies’ pitching coach, still wanted to see him.
“He’s young,” Cotham said. “I haven’t had a chance to see him as the human behind the baseball player.” Advertisement They talked about life.
What Painter wants. What he values. What success means to him.
He’s had time to slow down since two springs ago when, in Cotham’s words, Painter was “drinking through a fire hose.” He has a legitimate routine now, forged through months and months of monotonous work during the rehab process. “The coolest thing is he radiates that he’s comfortable with himself,” Cotham said.
“He doesn’t need to be anything more. He doesn’t need to prove anything to anybody. He’s comfortable taking a day off, taking a day to throw lighter.
He’s just comfortable. That’s a hard thing to get to as a young kid.” Cotham, like Barrett, wanted to test Painter.
They analyzed his dominant work in the Arizona Fall League — 18 innings, 18 strikeouts, four walks, a 2.30 ERA — and Cotham was impressed with Painter’s focus. In pitching, you always want to tinker.
Painter ditched a cutter he had started throwing in between the 2022 and 2023 seasons. He took the same grip and is treating it more like a tighter slider. What’s he trying to do with that pitch now? “Throw it hard,” Painter said.
“Rip it.” This was Cotham’s current assessment of Painter: “He could show you every single spin and shape on the planet. Right?” But there is value in mastering two — the slider and curveball — to narrow his focus.
He’s added a basic changeup that will be his fourth pitch. That’s it. Painter saw it this way, too.
His aptitude for pitching, Cotham said, was more advanced than anyone he’s known at that age. “It’s advanced for even guys that I’ve been around in the big leagues,” Cotham said. “Just the understanding of why.
Why pitches move the way they do. The art and feel for a delivery. Because what Andy is good at is he loves to pitch.
Legitimately, he likes the game. You have to like the game and get wrapped up in the game to get those takeaways.” Advertisement The time away from actual competition has made Painter even more curious about the why.
“He’s really good at the art of it,” Cotham said “Me versus the hitter. He wants to get a little better (at) understanding some of the science, some of the numbers. But it’s mainly to understand why he does better.
What does it look like when he’s really good? What’s the adjustment? When this pitch moves like that, can we use the technology and the data to understand what the adjustment is? So he doesn’t need to search as much down the road. It’s a pretty advanced way of thinking about it. And it’s how I think for all our guys.
” Barrett’s initial greeting is ingrained in Painter’s mind. This did change him, he said. Painter is throwing bullpens right now at lower intensities.
Everything in this spring training is the diametric opposite of two springs ago when he fired 99 mph fastballs to big-league hitters on the back fields and had the entire camp’s attention. Painter can slow everything down — even the hype is a little dulled. So be it.
“On the mental side, you have to grow,” Painter said. “You have to be able to adapt. Be where your feet are at.
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