When you’re as good as Andrew Painter can be on the mound, a rehab assignment can turn into an award-winning performance.

After a two-year layoff following Tommy John surgery, the goal was for the No. 32 prospect in baseball to simply get his first competitive innings in the Arizona Fall League, shake the rust off and build toward a full 2025 season. He did all that and then some, earning the AFL’s Pitcher of the Year Award.

“Coming in here, I just wanted to compete and get a feel for my stuff, feel confident going into ’25 and walk out healthy,” Painter said after his final outing of the fall. “It felt great. You can’t simulate it in bullpens and everything back at the complex. The adrenaline kicked in and did its part. Everything felt good, and I feel really good moving forward.”

He and the Phillies should be really confident looking ahead after the 21-year-old right-hander navigated expertly through 15 2/3 innings of work this fall, finishing with a 2.30 ERA, .189 batting average against, 0.89 WHIP and an 18/4 K/BB ratio (10.34 K/9, 2.30 BB/9). Perhaps the most amazing thing, given how long it’s been since he pitched in a competitive setting, was his ability to be efficient and in the strike zone. Painter led the AFL with just 13.98 pitches per inning and threw 68 percent of all of his pitches for strikes, according to Synergy, while producing a 31 percent miss rate.

“The thing with him going out there was to regain his health, to get him on the mound and in competition,” new Phillies farm director Luke Murton said. “There’s a big difference having a uniform on and the other team having a uniform on.

“He didn’t miss a beat. He has arm strength, he spins two breaking balls, he gets swings and misses, he throws strikes and limits damage. He has the talent and the ability to execute. He has the stuff, and he has command.”

One of those breaking balls, his slider, is a newer pitch, but it sure was good. Painter landed the upper-80s offering for a strike 81 percent of the time and missed bats at a 48 percent clip. The low-80s curve was nearly as good (71 percent strike rate; 44 percent miss rate), and he started showing more effectiveness with his changeup as the fall went on.

“I feel great about the slider,” Painter said. “Obviously, it’s a newer pitch, and I feel good where we’re at with it now. I look forward to an offseason of tinkering with that.

“I feel good with all the off-speed pitches. I feel like I can land them for a strike. The fastball was kind of scattered my last two starts, but the changeup feels good, and I’m throwing it in the zone, and it’s been competitive for me. So I feel good about all four pitches right now.”

All of this sets the stage for what could be a very exciting 2025 season for Painter and the Phillies. Dave Dombrowski, the Phillies’ president of baseball operations, has said he expects Painter to contribute to the big league staff at some point next season. Painter himself wasn’t looking that far ahead during his AFL stint, and the organization will surely try not to put too much pressure on him.

“With how talented he is and his production there, everyone can dream of what could happen,” Murton said. “This offseason, we’ll be sitting down with the group and will talk about what’s the best thing for him moving forward, and what’s the best thing for the Phillies.”

While his ETA in Philadelphia is unknown, there seems to be little doubt about where he belongs in comparison to other pitching prospects. It may have been a small sample, but his work in the AFL has proven to most that he’s back to the guy who pitched his way to Double-A during his first full season of pro ball and was the clear choice to be MLB Pipeline’s Pitching Prospect of the Year in 2022.

“I’ve done a lot of scouting,” said Murton, who was an evaluator for the Giants and Padres before joining the Phillies’ player development staff. “I saw the top arms in the Draft this year. I saw Jackson Jobe pitch this year. I’ve seen the cream of the crop. From my perspective, Painter would be the top pitching prospect.

“Painter’s the type of kid, he’s not only very talented, he’s a really hard worker. He did everything on the rehab front to prepare him. When you get a healthy Andrew Painter, who is ultra-talented, he was able to go out there and show what he’s capable of doing.”