After the recommendation came from the Phillies' medical staff last week, Andrew Painter met with Dr. Neal ElAttrache in Los Angeles and underwent successful Tommy John surgery, the club announced Tuesday.
The top pitching prospect is looking at a 15-18 month recovery timeline, which means he won't be on a mound again until 2025.
The statement the Phillies released Tuesday night:
Taken 13th overall in the 2021 draft out of high school, Painter's development stormed right through the Phillies' farm system over the course of the next year, and he came into spring training this season with a legitimate chance at cracking the roster as the team's fifth starter.
A UCL sprain suffered after his first spring start threw a wrench in that plan, however. The Phillies tried to treat the injury conservatively over the last few months with the hope of avoiding surgery and the even slimmer hope that the 20-year old righthander could still possibly pitch this season.
But in the end, Painter couldn't shake his symptoms, and they had to shut him down for the long term.
"I just feel for him at this point," Phillies president Dave Dombrowski said last week. "But again, a youngster, he's 20 years old, just turned 20. You start talking about missing next year and coming back for '25, well you're 22 years old at that time and even if there's a little bit of time delay as far as getting back, building his stuff back up, which sometimes happens, you're talking about a very young man who has a long future ahead of him."
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