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Eric Longenhagen Prospects Chat
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Jay Buhner
12:54
Obligatory Colt Emerson question.  Seems like the power stroke has been found with the toe tap.  Fun defensively to watch.  Mid/late season call up in 2026 with Crawford's contract coming to an end?
Eric A Longenhagen
12:55
Yeah, this is the more likely chain of events. I'd wanna trade JP if I could, and I'd try to gauge when his market would be hottest based on FA depth at shortstop, etc. COuld be an offseason thing rather than an in-season 2026 transition from JP to Young/Colt.
IE
12:56
George Lombard Jr. never seemed to take off in AA. Does this say something about his ability to adjust to higher level pitching or is he just so young for the league that we should cut him some slack?
Eric A Longenhagen
12:56
The latter, the kid has real juice and is a great defender. He's a Dude.
Guest
12:56
In relation to Baumann's recent Tong article, why don't more prospects encourage higher arm slots? Theoretically wouldn't you want as much rise on your fastball as possible? I would assume that a horizontal spin axis is ideal for rise
Eric A Longenhagen
12:57
backspin helps the fastball ride but a higher slot means you're more likely to have downhill plane (which is hittable). It's a tradeoff, and the IVB of a fastball is impacted by the release height (higher releases = more IVB, you need to adjust for that, more IVB does't always mean it's a better riding heater)....
12:59
when you get the guys who generate backspin AND have a low release height, now we're really talking. That's the Timmy Lineccum, Clayton Kershaw type fastball. There are all kinds of ways to succeed with different types of arm angles and fastball shapes, there's no universal ideal. Tong's fastball gives him good margin for error in the strike zone and I think he's going to be quite good even though I bet he'll struggle with walks here and there due to the nature of his delivery.
That's a big head whack, and you don't see many guys spinning out on their heels like he does.
Jeremy
12:59
Andrew Painter scuffled this year. Just normal post-TJ recovery, command taking longer to return than velocity/stuff? Or has AAA revealed some things he needs to improve, that weren't exposed at lower levels?
Eric A Longenhagen
1:00
His arm slot is different than pre-surgery. I have a bunch of notes in a top 100 update piece I've been working on during my time off (i know, i know) and I do think we need to adjust expectations for how his fastball is going to play...
1:01
but in a vacuum, I think his season was positive. In the context of our expectations, it was not.
1:02
Here, lemme just post my updated report draft in here and then I need to split and get ready for my instructs game today...
Painter is wrapping up a season that is disappointing in light of the perhaps overzealous expectations laid out for him by people like myself, who posited Painter might kick down the door and play a meaningful role in a contending team's rotation by the end of this season. He’s struggled to the tune of an ERA and FIP over five at Triple-A Lehigh Valley, and is missing fewer bats with his fastball than I would have guessed if you’d have told me Painter would be sitting 96 all year (more on that later) coming off surgery. But in a vacuum his season has been fine. This is a 22-year-old who hadn’t thrown a pitch at an affiliate since 2022 and yet was aggressively pushed to Triple-A and has been able to keep his head above water, plus Painter has pitched better of late.
1:03
When you look at the 2025 season as a whole, Painter’s stuff has performed like it’s made of average or below components across the board, but his stuff still *<em>looks</em>* good, and Painter is making adjustments. Since the All Star break he's nearly tripled his changeup usage, and that pitch is improving rapidly. Both it, and his slider, are playing more like plus offerings in terms of miss and chase, during the last six weeks of the season. Painter has feel for backdooring his harder slider (impressive for a pitcher his age/size) and for burying his curveball in the dirt, but less so for creating lateral chase off the plate with his breaking stuff. It's a nice toolkit of secondary pitches for a giant 22-year-old.
If there’s a real issue looming here it’s Painter’s lack of fastball playability. This is a 6-foot-7 guy who is only generating a little over six feet of extension, he’s not powering way down the mound. This is having dual negative impact on Painter's fastball because not only does the generic extension make hitters appear more comfortable, but a shorter stride and therefore more upright style of delivery is causing Painter's fastball to approach the plate with downhill plane, which is often not great for missing bats. When we last had affiliated pitch performance data from Painter (2022) his fastball was utterly dominant (29% miss, .645 opponent OPS), but this year has been pretty bad, with a 17% miss rate and an opponent's OPS over 1.000 (pending update after final start). Has there been a post-surgery mechanical change here that might explain the huge dip in the fastball's bat-missing performance? I'd say so.
Painter's newer delivery features a good bit less tilt in his torso and a slightly lower arm angle. The current release point looks easier for him to execute and repeat than the one in 2022 and this newer slot probably helps Painter move the ball laterally more than his old one, but these changes have also sucked some of the pure vertical life out of his pre-surgery fastball. Here we have visual evidence that reinforces what the data suggests; that something here has changed and negatively impacted the bat-missing ability of Painter's fastball compared to when he was last pitching for an entire season.
He still has a very favorable overall forecast as a mid-rotation workhorse with good secondary stuff and command, but it's tough to project him as a contender's no. 1 or no. 2 starter without Painter having an impact fastball, and so he slides an FV tier on this end-of-season update. He made his final Triple-A start on Wednesday (the Phillies were shortening his rest between starts until the last couple of weeks when they let him go on a full week's rest) and . I think you could argue he's the Phillies' fifth best starter right now, or at least that he's in the mix with Taijuan Walker and Walker Buehler in that regard, but it would take a ton of depth-killing 40-man roster maneuvering (plus altering Painter's day to throw to get him in lockstep with Walker and Buehler) for Painter to be elevated proactively. Despite Zack Wheeler's injury, Painter is unlikely to impact the playoff race unless the Phillies have a couple more injuries during the final few weeks of the season.
1:04
OKay, and with that I'm out of here. Thanks for coming again, I'll see you guys next week.
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