There has been a lot Andrew Painter has seen over their first month in the big leagues. He joined a contending team that got off to an uneven 8-8 start, then lost ten straight, and one of the greatest managers in the history of the franchise got sacked not even 30 games into the season. It’s a lot.
While all of this is happening around Painter, he has made five big league appearances, four of them starts and the other a relief appearance because he had a migraine. The results have been a bit mixed,
and he probably shouldn’t have faced Michael Harris II in Atlanta. That decision from Rob Thomson might’ve gotten him fired. Again, it’s a lot.
Through all of that, here is what we know about how Caleb Cotham and the Phillies are trying to use Painter.
The arsenal
One of the biggest differences in how Painter pitched in AAA last season and what he is doing in the Majors this year is how he is platooning his arsenal.
The first big changes are actually how he’s attacking right handed hitters. His sinker against righties has jumped from roughly 6% to 31% in the majors and is his primary fastball against them. He has been exclusively throwing it on the inner-third of the plate to keep hitters honest.
This jump has sacrificed the four-seam usage to right-handed hitters and the hard slider. Painter did throw what was considered a cutter last year along with a hard slider, but some of this could be pitches bleeding into each other and the usage makes it seem that way. He threw those offerings roughly 32% of the time to righties and his four-seam 40% of the time.
He has cut his four-seam fastball down to 28% against right-handed hitters so far and the slider usage went down to 14%. He is working an east-west combination with the sinker in and using sliders and sweepers away for chase.
The approach to left handed hitters has surprisingly been similar but some of this could be how the Phillies want to use his arsenal.
There has been a lot of discussion about Andrew Painter’s four-seam fastball shape, even from our site. Look, it’s not the high back-spin whiff machine that was promised pre-Tommy John surgery and it’s generally getting hit hard, especially from right-handed hitters.
But there is still a way to use it effectively against lefties. His fastball only gets 3.2 inches of arm-side movement on average but compared to what hitters are used to seeing, he is sort of cutting the pitch. So, the Phillies have been asking him to throw it glove-side or inside to lefties.
He is also doing a good job of backdooring the slider for called strikes and working a tunnel with his split-change, which is getting a 36.8% whiff rate against left-handed hitters. He has flipped some curveballs for strikes and has shown the ability to get chase.
Adjustments moving forward
The general results for Painter’s first 24 big league innings have been fine. The ERA is high at 5.25 but his FIP is sitting at 3.34 because he isn’t walking a lot of hitters and other ERA estimators are hovering close to four. He is not getting a lot of whiffs or strikeouts but probably has the capacity to do so moving forward.
There have to be adjustments to how he attacks right-handed hitters because he is allowing a .343 average with a .929 OPS. It’s not good enough especially given some of his secondary pitches.
The first big change is to cut back on the four-seam fastball usage. It is working enough against lefties but righties are crushing it. They have an average exit velocity of 94.4 mph on the pitch and are hitting .400 on the offering. He has not allowed an extra-base hit in this sample, but the quality of his contact is concerning and he isn’t getting nearly enough whiffs to justify it.
Some of the usage will have to go into the sinker because he needs something to throw strikes with and that might be fine. His average exit velocity allowed on the sinker is down 10 mph against righties compared to the four-seam fastball. He could also try and steal more strikes with the curveball if there are some worries about not throwing enough strikes.
The slider and sweeper usage probably have to increase because he is not getting enough strikeouts against righties. His slider has a 57.1% whiff rate against righties and the sweeper is at 35.7%, throwing those pitches a bit more should help increase his strikeout rate.
There are issues with this, Painter has not shown amazing command of his arsenal yet, so things are tricky. Also, platooning down his arsenal might make him more predictable moving forward. It’s a tricky balance.
There are some good ideas for Painter but there is still a lot that the club has to figure out. There is a promising pitcher here, with some encouraging signs that should be in for a solid rookie campaign.
