Scouting Andrew Painter, George Lombard Jr., The Password, and more MLB prospect notes

New York Times

23-05-2025

Mick Abel's remarkable MLB debut may have just further whetted Phillies fans' appetites for the arrival of their top pitching prospect, right-hander Andrew Painter, who is now pitching for Triple-A Lehigh Valley. I caught Painter on Wednesday in his latest start for the IronPigs.
Painter, who ranked No. 12 on my preseason top 100 prospect list, went 71 pitches, four-plus innings, on a very cold and damp night in Allentown, Penn., with the temperature at 50 degrees at first pitch. He was 94-98 throughout the outing and threw a ton of sliders — Statcast calls it a cutter, but Painter told our Matt Gelb this spring that he was ditching that pitch — in what I assume was a plan to have him work on the slider so it'll be ready for major-league hitters. I don't think it's there yet; it's hard, mostly 90-91 and topping out at 93, but the break isn't that tight and he missed consistently with it to his glove side. It runs more than it breaks, which I suppose also might indicate that it's a cutter, and hitters whiffed on the fastball slightly more often than they did on the slider in this game. The curveball was hilarious, to use the technical term, although he only threw a handful, and he didn't throw a single changeup.
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His delivery is still fantastic — how often do you hear me say that about any pitcher? — and he can throw the fastball for strikes, and maybe every other pitch but the slider right now. Bearing in mind that this had to be a miserable night to grip and spin the ball, since it never stopped drizzling while Painter was in the game, I don't think he's ready to step into a big-league rotation right now. The slider is a work in progress, clearly, and I was disappointed not to see the changeup at all. He went to the slider in changeup counts against lefties the entire night, with mixed results; Buffalo (Toronto affiliate) hitters were so geared up for the fastball they might have spun themselves into the ground if he'd flipped a 45 changeup away to them.
The fastball plays, and the curveball is a widowmaker. I'm not convinced he needs a slider, but if the plan is to get him to develop one, I would give him some more turns in the Lehigh Valley rotation and wait for consistently warmer weather, too.
In the same game, Phillies outfield prospect Justin Crawford (No. 41 on the top 100) did triple on a fly ball to deep center, but he's still generating way too many ground balls for a guy with his strength and potential for power, which I think is because he starts his hands so high.
The speed and defense are still there, and he led off the bottom of the first with a great at-bat that, unfortunately, ended in a ground ball.
Last Saturday night, I headed to Somerset to see the Double-A affiliates for the Red Sox (Portland Sea Dogs) and Yankees (Somerset Patriots) square off, which turned out to be one of Jhostynxon Garcia's last games at that level before a promotion to Triple A.
Known as 'The Password,' Garcia (Red Sox No. 8 prospect) swings very hard and he is very strong, destroying a hanging cutter from Patriots right-hander Trent Sellers for a home run the other way. It was an awful pitch, but Garcia at least did what you're supposed to do with those, and the power he showed was impressive.
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He's shown more zone awareness this year in his return to Double A, going from a 4.8 percent walk rate in a month there last year to 13 percent in a month there this year before his promotion. I saw him chase some fastballs above the zone, which does seem to be a moderate concern based on his data from this season. He can mash, though; even if the walk-rate boost turns out to be a mirage, this is real power, and he seems like at worst he'll be a low-OBP slugger, probably in right field.
George Lombard, Jr., the Yankees' first-round pick in 2023, was the primary reason I made the trip, since the team so rudely promoted him the day before he was scheduled to come play a series in my backyard. (Not literally. This isn't Iowa.) Lombard ranked 98 on the preseason top-100 list.
He has a great swing, balanced through contact, with some loft in his finish for line-drive power. He hasn't gotten off to a great start in Double A, hitting .195/.352/.195 through Wednesday night, and from what I saw, it may be a matter of adjusting to pitchers messing with timing. The high walk rate is a function of good strike-zone judgment, yet he'll swing the bat — I got 12 swings from him on the night, so he's up there to hit, not take. He was just slightly off on some pitches he'll probably square up later this year. Pitchers attacked him with sliders and cutters, likely better quality versions of those pitches than what he was seeing in High A, and it'll probably take him some time to adjust, maybe the rest of the summer.
He played an easy shortstop, although he drops down to throw, putting some two-seam action on throws to first that is going to make them harder to receive.
Catcher Rafael Flores (Yankees No. 13 prospect) was an undrafted free agent when Yankees scout Dave Keith signed him in the summer of 2022. He's going to get to the majors as a backup catcher and maybe a platoon bat off the bench, as he has at least above-average power and can whack a fastball. He's been chasing pitches out of the zone more this year, although that wasn't an issue on Saturday, as he went 3-for-5 with a no-doubt homer and only chased one pitch of the 16 he saw on the night.
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It's an easy swing and he's strong enough to pull the ball out to left consistently enough that if he were a better defender, I'd say he was going to be an everyday catcher. He's just OK behind the plate, though, and may not have the arm to be a primary backstop. There's a major-league role for him somewhere.
Shortstop Mikey Romero (Red Sox No. 19 prospect) was Boston's first pick in the 2022 draft, going at pick No. 24, 55 spots ahead of current No. 1 prospect Roman Anthony. Unlike Anthony, Romero has had a lot of adversity in pro ball, as a serious back injury ruined his 2023 season and his performance last year still wasn't up to expectations.
There's some good news here, as he's way more filled out now and I think the power he flashed last year (16 homers in 78 games) might be real, or at least more than I thought it was. He's still too aggressive at the plate, and he had some bad hacks at changeups, whiffing at least twice on them, although with two strikes he stayed back better and lined one to left, which says there might be some more pitch recognition in there than the raw data indicate.
He played third base in this game and looked much better suited to that position than shortstop. He's only 21 and would be in this draft had he gone to college. There's still time for him to tighten up the approach and find a path to the big leagues, even if it's just as a utility infielder who has some left-handed pop.
Boston acquired right-hander Dave Sandlin (Red Sox No. 9 prospect) in the trade that sent reliever John Schreiber to Kansas City in February 2024, a deal I loved at the time for Boston, as Sandlin was among the Royals' top 10 prospects and looked like a potential back-end starter.
The Red Sox have turned him into a slider- and cutter-heavy guy who seems destined for the bullpen at this point, even though he has a decent fastball. It's a four-seamer, mostly 94-95, with a little ride, and he did get misses on it up in the zone, with a little deception from a huge torso turn in his delivery so that the ball appears late.
For some reason, though, he's deprecated the fastball in favor of a slider and a cutter: He went from throwing 58 percent fastballs (according to data from Synergy) in 2023, his last year in the Royals' system, but is at just 42 percent fastballs so far this year. The slider has some tilt to it and is almost slurvy, at 82-84, while the cutter was 85-88 and was maybe average if I'm feeling generous. He got just one whiff on the cutter by my count out of the nine he had in the game. Maybe the fastball isn't as effective as I think it is, but he has a 5.30 ERA since the trade, so it's fair to say the current pitching plan for Sandlin isn't working out.
(Top photo of Painter: Miles Kennedy / Philadelphia Phillies)