Rise and Phight: 3/7/2023

There’s still no update about Andrew Painter, which leads me to some thoughts. Come, grab your closest tinfoil hat and pull up a chair.

I would never accuse the Phillies of pulling any shenanigans when it comes to a player’s service time. They’ve never really demonstrated a desire to do so in the past, so why start with Painter? It does seem quite fortuitous that this injury is happening right, paving the way for the team to be able to slow down the hype train a bit and let things play out. Taking a brief pause with Painter’s spring allows them to keep moving forward with other options in the #5 spot, mainly Bailey Falter while letting Painter get completely healthy. Once he is, there is nothing stopping him from usurping a rotation spot outside of Falter turning into some hybrid of Sandy Koufax and Clayton Kershaw.

We all want to see Painter as soon as possible at the big league level, but as much as they talk about the lack of limitations being placed on him, we all know that at some point in the year, Painter was going to take a break. There probably isn’t a firm innings total the team is looking at, but there is likely a number they were looking at before they started to sweat a bit. With this pause in his spring, those innings can come closer to October than April, something we’d probably rather see as fans anyway were we to have any say in the matter. Personally, I’d rather see Painter dominating teams with a playoff spot on the horizon than in the early days of the season. Wins are wins, sure, but some just feel a bit more important than others.

We’ll just have to wait and see.

On to the links.

Phillies news:

• Darick Hall is having success this spring. It’s put him in the pole position to make the team, all because of his own formula for success.
• In all the hubbub surrounding Andrew Painter, let’s not forget about Mick Abel. That plus other notes on the team.
• Starting to wonder if Jake Cave has the lead over Daulton Guthrie for one of the bench jobs this spring.

MLB news:

• It’s a question I know you have been asking yourself this spring: who are the winners and losers of the new rules for MLB?
• There are a couple of young guns turning heads in spring training, plus other observations around the game.
• Stop it. The World Baseball Classic is a treasure and should be treated as such. No one talks about this with soccer players and the World Cup.