Dombrowski hypes up young pitching talent

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Who are the Phillies going to get before Tuesday’s 6 p.m. ET Trade Deadline?

Who are they going to give up to get them?

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Phillies president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski offered an interesting nugget Monday when asked about the talent they might trade before the Deadline. Right-handers Andrew Painter, Mick Abel and Griff McGarry are three of the most coveted pitching prospects in baseball. MLB Pipeline ranks Painter No. 52 and Abel No. 54 in its top 100 list. McGarry is expected to be ranked somewhere among the Phillies' top 5-10 prospects when Pipeline's rankings are updated in the coming weeks. Painter, Abel and McGarry are in Baseball America’s top 100. Right-hander Ben Brown is an emerging prospect, too. He is expected to jump from No. 26 in the organization to somewhere in the top 15 when rankings are updated.

Dombrowski mentioned only McGarry by name on Monday. He is in Double-A Reading. Painter, Abel and Brown are in High-A Jersey Shore. Dombrowski never said anybody is untouchable, but he strongly suggested that he has no plans to trade his most elite pitching prospects (even for a generational talent like Juan Soto) because one of them (or maybe more than one) could be in next season’s rotation.

“The strength of our organization right now is our young starting pitching,” Dombrowski said. “It’s a very talented group of young starting pitchers. You can check back where I’ve been, sometimes they get to the big leagues very fast. I’m not saying this year, but there are some people that could be competing for spots next year that are youngsters. I’ve had no problem pitching guys who are 20 years old and having a lot of success and putting them in the big leagues. And they’re that good that some of those guys could be pitching here. So I don’t want to just think short-term.

“They’ll be going to Spring Training with us next year. I mean, some of those guys are really good.”

Dombrowski served as Marlins general manager from September 1991 to 2001. Livan Hernandez (21 in 1996), Ryan Dempster (21 in 1998) and Josh Beckett (21 in 2001) made debuts at a young age. Dombrowski ran baseball operations for the Tigers from 2002 to August 2015. Jeremy Bonderman (20 in 2003) and Rick Porcello (20 in 2009) made debuts at young ages, too.

Painter will turn 20 next April.

Abel will turn 21 on Aug. 18.

Brown will turn 23 on Sept. 9.

McGarry will turn 24 next June.

“It’s a fun situation to be in,” Dombrowski said. “Once they get to Double-A, I’ve never had a problem jumping Double-A to the big leagues.”

The only question is innings. The Phillies are unlikely to take a prospect with few innings under his belt and turn him loose in the big leagues. There are no hard and fast rules, of course. Every situation is different. But McGarry has thrown 59 innings this season. Painter has thrown 55 1/3. Brown has thrown 73. Abel has thrown 78.

They should get more work before the end of the season. Jersey Shore’s schedule runs through Sept. 11. Reading’s schedule runs through Sept. 18. Triple-A Lehigh Valley’s schedule runs through Sept. 28. But there should be room in the big leagues for one of them at some point next year. Looking ahead, Zack Wheeler is signed through 2024. The Phillies have a 2023 club option on Aaron Nola, which will be exercised. Ranger Suárez is under team control through 2025.

There are two potential vacancies in the rotation. Zach Eflin and the Phillies have a mutual option for 2023. Kyle Gibson is a free agent.

Nobody knows how Abel, Painter and McGarry will pan out in the big leagues, but there is as much internal optimism about them as any homegrown pitcher in recent memory. Maybe more. It is easy to understand why the Phillies would say they are reluctant to trade them in the coming days. Until, of course, they get an offer they can’t refuse.