PHILADELPHIA -- When Andrew Painter takes the mound for his spring debut on Sunday, the radar gun will get its reading. It always does when a pitcher listed at 6-foot-7 unleashes a fastball that has touched 100 mph.
But for the Philadelphia Phillies in 2026, velocity is not the story.
Durability is.
Painter arrives this season in a familiar organizational category: the can’t-miss pitching prospect. Philadelphia has lived inside that phrase for decades. It has also learned how fragile it can be.
There was Tyler Green, the power arm whose promise flickered under the weight of injuries. There was Gavin Floyd, a top-five overall pick expected to headline a rotation. There was Kyle Drabek, the son of a Cy Young winner with frontline projections. More recently, Spencer Howard carried mid-90s velocity and top-50 prospect status into a role that never stabilized.
Each was labeled foundational.
Few became foundational.
In fact, since 1990, only four Phillies-drafted pitchers have delivered at least three consecutive 150-inning seasons in Philadelphia: Randy Wolf, Brett Myers, Cole Hamels, and Aaron Nola.
That’s the entire list.
Hamels and Nola became rotation pillars. Wolf and Myers had stretches of stability in eras that desperately needed it. But across 35 years of drafts, only four arms developed in-house have sustained that level of workload consistency in red pinstripes.
That is the standard Painter is walking toward.
His résumé suggests the talent is real.
In 2022, at 19 years old, Painter dominated three minor league levels — Clearwater, Jersey Shore and Reading — compiling a 1.56 ERA over 103 2/3 innings. He struck out 155 hitters and walked just 25, holding opponents to a .181 average while allowing only five home runs all season. It was not a projection. It was performance.
Then came the interruption — Tommy John surgery in July 2023 — the kind of detour that has rerouted promising Phillies arms before.
Which is why 2026 is not about flash.
It is about availability.
The Phillies do not need a phenom. They do not need triple digits in March. They need 150 competitive innings that keep a veteran core from carrying unsustainable weight into October.
A club built to contend cannot afford to tax its bullpen every fourth night. It cannot build postseason leverage without rotational stability. The margin is too thin.
Painter doesn’t need to replicate Hamels’ ascension. He doesn’t need Cy Young chatter. He needs to take the ball 28 times and leave it in a better place than he found it.
If he posts a sub-4.00 ERA across a full workload — if he simply joins Wolf, Myers, Hamels and Nola in the fraternity of Phillies-drafted starters who proved durable — that would represent one of the most significant internal pitching developments this franchise has seen in a generation.
The difference between “can’t miss” and “can’t replace” is consistency.
For too long, the Phillies have chased pitching certainty.
Andrew Painter doesn’t need to be electric.
He needs to be there.
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