Phillies 2026 Top Prospect – The Top 5

When we talk about the shallowness of the Phillies system, that shouldn’t really extend into the very top of it. Painter’s regression and Crawford’s continued inconsistencies make it not an elite top of the system, but it is at least average. Miller is not one of the very top prospects in baseball, but for me he is a top 20 prospect and a future core piece, even if he isn’t a star. Painter has star upside, and while there are real questions about his future, he still would slot in the middle part of a top 100. Crawford, Wood, and Escobar are all solid back of a top 100 prospects to me, and they round out this group with some nice depth. More exciting to the current Phillies major league team is that Crawford and Painter are likely to get early shots at contributing to the big league team, and Miller is not far off. It has been exceedingly rare for the Phillies to actually graduate top prospects to the majors, and they have introduced essentially no regulars to the hitting or starting pitching staff since the start of this playoff run. If they are going to be sustainable as a competitor in the long run, they are going to need these players to at least contribute to the major league team, and hopefully at least one of them is a core part of the team going forward.

All ages are as of Opening Day – March 26, 2026

1. Aidan Miller, SS

Age: 21 (6/9/04)
Acquired: Drafted in the 1st Round of the 2023 Draft by the Phillies
B/T: R/R
H/W: 6’1” 205lbs
2025 Stats:

Team (LVL)	G	PA	HR	SB	BB%	K%	AVG	OBP	SLG
REA (AA)	108	489	13	52	14.9%	23.7%	.259	.382	.427
LHV (AAA)	8	37	1	7	24.3%	18.9%	.333	.514	.519
Total	116	526	14	59	15.6%	23.4%	.264	.392	.433

Role: All-Star Infielder
Risk: Medium – There are still some lingering worries from the start of Miller’s 2025 season, and he might not have a plus plus tool. He also might not be a shortstop due to both growing out of the position and being blocked by Trea Turner.
Overview: It was a rough start of sorts for Aidan Miller. He did not hit at all in April, had a bounceback in May, and then had a horrible June and July. He often looked stuck in between in his approach, getting too passive and behind in counts leading to poor contact. He also was weirdly not facing many left handed pitchers. After the trade deadline, things just clicked into gear and he mashed his way through August and September, ending with a great 8 games in AAA. He looked in complete command at the plate, attacking in the zone while not expanding. He didn’t often show it, but he has plus power, especially to the pull side, and he should grow into a 20+ home run hitter who peppers the walls with doubles. Miller is pull heavy, but he still has some untapped pull side power to tap into. Athletically, Miller also keeps getting better. He is not as fast as his 59 stolen bases might indicate, but he is probably a plus runner now and an opportunistic base runner. He isn’t going to win a gold glove at shortstop, but the question of whether he can play the position is tabled until his athleticism starts slipping. He has a good arm and could slide over to second or third, with third being the more obvious fit. Given what he has shown at short, he has a chance to be a plus or better defender at the hot corner. Miller isn’t far off of 5 plus tools, and everything is above average. He will hint at plus plus raw power, and if he can get the swing decisions fully dialed in, he could tap into at least plus game power. He does not have the elite tools or athleticism to clearly predict as a future MVP candidate, but he could still be a 4-5 win player even if he has to move off of shortstop. Miller has a fairly high floor, as a bunch of things could come in under projection and he still would be a solid regular.
2026 Outlook: Unlike Justin Crawford, the Phillies have not guaranteed Miller a 2026 opening day spot and have not made a spot available to him. Miller will instead head to AAA to get a look at some better stuff, get some positional flexibility, and await his major league turn. He should be the first call up if any of the Phillies infielders are injured for an extended period of time, and he probably does not go back down once he is up.
ETA: 2026
Previous Rank: 2

2. Andrew Painter, RHP

Age: 22 (4/10/03)
Acquired: Drafted in the 1st Round of the 2021 Draft by the Phillies
B/T: R/R
H/W: 6’7” 215lbs
2025 Stats:

Team (LVL)	G	GS	W-L	IP	ERA	H/9	HR/9	BB%	K%
CLW (A-)	4	4	0-2	11.1	3.97	7.9	1.5	2.2%	26.7%
LHV (AAA)	22	22	5-6	106.2	5.40	10.0	1.6	9.7%	23.4%
Total	26	26	5-8	118.0	5.28	9.8	1.5	9.0%	23.7%

Role: #2/#3 Starter
Risk: High – Painter flashed a bunch of promising attributes in his return from injury, especially in his number of innings pitched. However, his pitch shapes and command were a muddled mess, as he combined throwing new pitches and a return to high level competition. This led to struggles all year and questions about how high his ceiling actually is.
Overview: The fact that Andrew Painter made 26 starts and threw 118 innings this year with fastball velocity the same as before his injury should be a win. The fact that he is still on this list is a real sign that something went wrong, as the Phillies publicly planned for him to be in the majors by the middle of the season. Painter never really strung together more than two promising starts in a row. The problems start with Painter’s four seam fastball. Once an elite pitch before the injury, it was a liability by the end of the season. Predictably for a pitcher ramping back up from not pitching for two years, he gradually lost a little bit of velocity month over month. His arm slot also changed, and it led to less vertical movement. Since Painter’s height is never going to give him good attack angle on the pitch, the loss of movement led to it being very hittable in the strike zone. The problem seemed to also get worse when he introduced a sinker to his arsenal midway through the season. If Painter’s 4-seam fastball is not going to be as dynamic as it was in 2022, the sinker will help him get weak contact in the zone and is a good addition to his arsenal. If the Phillies can clean up his arm slot and find consistency between the two different fastball shapes, it won’t return it to being a dominant pitch, but it will prevent it from being a liability.

There is a similar story in Painter’s breaking balls. When he returned last year, Painter had scrapped his sweeper in favor of a harder cutter/slider. Over the course of the season, he flashed and then fully reintroduced a sweeper that was less vertical than his original, but with more sweep and velocity. Ideally, Painter would use both of these slider varieties to give him something against both lefties and righties, and in the case of the cutter, a pitch to use in the strike zone. The problem all year, and especially late, is that he never really had those two unique shapes. It was more of a smudge that ran the entire way in between, and those middle pitches did not fool anyone and he often left breaking balls in the hitting zone. To add yet another wrinkle, his curveball was very hittable and also started to blend into the sweeper sphere. Ideally, it is a pitch that he should not be throwing in the strike zone, except to occasionally steal a strike or change eye level, but his struggles meant he was not getting chases on his whole arsenal and was bringing the curve into the zone more. The lone bright spot is his changeup. It took him a while to find a feel for it, but by the summer he was throwing it more often. He manages to kill the spin well on it, giving it about 8-9 mph of velocity separation and about 10 inches of vertical separation from his fastball, with decent armside run. He barely threw it in the strike zone, but had good success when he did, and he also got good chase and whiff rates on it out of the zone. Given the fastball deficiencies, he will likely need to ramp up how many he throws and should work it against righties in addition to lefties.

Overall, there are the pieces for a very good major league starting pitcher, but they are hiding in a lot of mess and inconsistency. It was a long season, and it was a return from missing two years to surgery, so there is a natural instinct to think that Painter is going to work with the coaches to clean this all up. However, the loss of fastball quality is real, and the pitcher who essentially dominated on two pitches back in 2022 is gone. Painter’s path forward is going to include the larger arsenal he developed in 2025 and really being a much more mature and crafty pitcher, and that might take time to develop. 
2026 Outlook: There is a major league rotation spot available for Painter to win this spring. The Phillies would not be counting on him to be an ace to begin with, so if he can provide a year’s worth of back end starter innings he should have a role all year.
ETA: 2026
Previous Rank: 1

3. Justin Crawford, OF

Age: 22 (1/13/04)
Acquired: Drafted in the 1st Round of the 2022 Draft by the Phillies 
B/T: L/R
H/W: 6’2” 188lbs
2025 Stats:

Team (LVL)	G	PA	HR	SB	BB%	K%	AVG	OBP	SLG
LHV (AAA)	112	506	7	46	11.5%	18.0%	.334	.411	.452

Role: Incredibly Frustrating Above Average Regular
Risk: Medium – It is true of any player that the role and risk is a sliding scale, but it might be most true with Crawford. The closer he gets to the majors without failing or fixing his issues, the more it looks like he can be a useful player in some capacity. The quality of his tools, coupled with his inability to fully access them, is going to leave outsiders wishing for more.
Overview: The critique of Justin Crawford throughout his pro career is that he hit the ball on the ground too much, due to a combination of swing mechanics and pitch recognition that left him in a place where he was lunging at pitches and making poor contact. The Phillies pushed him to AAA to see if better competition would force some change. The surface level result is he hit the ball on the ground nearly as much in 2025 as he did in 2024. However, he saw improvements in that area over the course of the year, with his GB% peaking at 65% in May, but it was 57.7% in July and just 51.3% in August. The goal here is not that Crawford becomes fly ball/pull heavy, but it is really about getting him on time to the ball so that he isn’t just merely getting the bat to the ball. This gets to one of the frustrations at the heart of watching Crawford, he has at least average raw power, and when he turns on a ball, you do see a player who should be pulling balls in certain parts of the zone out and does have the power to go opposite field. He did make positive changes in that area already. Over the first 4 months of the season he saw 128 pitches in the heart of the zone while ahead in counts, He swung at 102 of them and had one extra base hit. In August he swung at 18 of the 25 pitches in that scenario, but had an ISO of .545 thanks to two home runs, part of the 4 he hit that month. If he can keep the ground ball rate to more in the low 50% and run a high line drive rate, he is going to hit some balls out of the park, and he is going to get a bunch of doubles and triples by hitting balls into the gaps and using his speed. This also ties into Crawford’s approach and pitch recognition. He has very good contact rates, both in and out of the zone, and rarely whiffs on offspeed pitches. He swings a bunch (though much less this year than the past two years), and chases a bunch, but also as we saw with the damage side, he did not actually swing at or hit the ball hard on pitches in the zones where he should hit them. Whether Crawford can’t recognize pitches, or his disjointed swing is preventing him from being on time to the pitches he does recognize, Crawford’s poor contact quality does stem from swing decisions. Encouragingly, in July pitchers started throwing him fastballs out of the zone more (fastballs have been one of his weaknesses due to the swing length) and he responded by not swinging, which led to far and away his highest walk rate of any month. Being passive isn’t really a plan, so it was encouraging to see him really ramp up not his chase rate in August, but his zone swing rate, and while that did come with more strikeouts and fewer walks, it was the best contact results he had all year. This is all going to be tested against better pitchers, and getting his swing smooth and on time will help him use these approach improvements, but he is going to need to continue to be aggressive in the zone and not just aggressive.

Crawford’s speed is the one part of his game that is not really debated among evaluators. He is a plus plus runner, who is aggressive on the base paths and is limited more by not giving himself a chance to use it than the straight line speed. He also is a good bunter for hits, and while he needs to improve his contact quality overall, that does not mean scrapping the bunts, as they are a useful vehicle for getting on base and manipulating defensive alignments. On defense, Crawford’s speed is his saving grace, more than a weapon. He will often take his first step in the wrong direction or take a poor route to a ball. He has great closing speed and ability to make a catch on the run or dive, but that mostly has meant turning easy plays into highlights. There are real conversations about whether he is a left fielder due to this deficiency, so it will be imperative on the Phillies to clean up his routes and reads during Spring Training. His ceiling in center is plus defender because of his speed, but if he can just get to the point of being average out there it takes a lot of pressure off his bat to perform. His arm in the outfield is good enough to not be a liability, but not good enough to make right field really an option if he can’t play center.

You can make a case that Crawford is a left fielder who won’t hit for power, will be susceptible to chasing major league pitches, and just be a below average hitting bench outfielder. It is also not that hard to squint a little and see a high average hitter who is going to hit 15 home runs with 40+ stolen bases and good outfield defense. The truth is likely to be something messy in the middle. There are going to be moments where he is playing below his tools, and that is going to make what he does look disappointing, even if he is putting together solid contributions.
2026 Outlook: The Phillies have said that they plan on Crawford being the Opening Day center fielder. Given the makeup of the roster, the Phillies will be motivated to give him plenty of time to adapt and adjust, as long as he can be competent in center field and provide some value at the bottom of the lineup.
ETA: 2026
Previous Rank: 4

4. Gage Wood, RHP

Age: 22 (12/15/03)
Acquired: Drafted in the 1st Round of the 2025 Draft by the Phillies
B/T: R/R
H/W: 6’0” 205lbs
2025 Stats:

Team (LVL)	G	GS	W-L	IP	ERA	H/9	HR/9	BB%	K%
CLW (A-)	1	1	0-1	2.0	4.50	4.5	0.0	22.2%	55.6%

Role: Mid Rotation Starter/Late Inning Reliever
Risk: High – Wood might be close to being a middle reliever now, but he needs to clean up his offspeed pitches to pitch late in games. His higher upside is in a rotation, but he will need to prove that he can handle a full season workload as well as show better command and feel for his offspeed pitches.
Overview: Wood was one of the most famous, thanks to a no-hitter in the Men’s College World Series, and highest upside pitchers entering the 2025 draft. He had a 9.9 strikeout to walk rate in college thanks to a walk rate of just 1.7 and strikeout rate of 16.5 per 9. The problem is that he only threw 37.2 innings and had a 3.82 ERA thanks to some early struggles and a propensity for giving up some long balls. The big selling point on Wood is his fastball. He gets low with good extension, giving it a flat approach angle, and averages about 96 on it while touching up to 98. However, he didn’t get great ride or run on it in his small pro debut, which will be something to watch as he transitions to using the pro ball. It is a real bat misser up in the zone, but he is probably going to be home run prone if he misses low. He pitches off the high fastball with a power curveball with large drop and sweep. Given his two best pitches are probably chase pitches, it will behoove him and the Phillies to dial his gyro slider into a better and more consistent pitch that he can use in the zone and to suppress contact. To stay in a starting rotation, he also will need to improve his changeup enough to be able to show it a few times a game. There has been a lot of talk of Wood being a quick moving reliever because of his fastball and curveball, but there are really starting pitcher traits, especially in line with modern starting pitching development. The injury risk is a large factor, Wood missed a bunch of 2025 due to a shoulder injury and has never really sustained a starting pitcher workload. Even if he can hold up in a rotation, the Phillies are likely going to ramp up his workload slower than the major league contribution some are envisioning. In a couple of years, if the starting pitching development doesn’t work out, he does have a fall back as a prototypical late inning arm.
2026 Outlook: Wood’s fastball is probably enough to dominate Clearwater on its own, so starting in Jersey Shore makes the most sense. His innings will be limited due to previous workload levels, which could see him pitching short games early and maybe some bullpen innings later. As a starter he probably tops out in AA in 2026, but if they want him in the bullpen late in the season, he could theoretically make the majors.
ETA: 2027
Previous Rank: N/A

5. Aroon Escobar, 2B

Age: 21 (1/1/05)
Acquired: Signed as an International Free Agent by the Phillies in 2022
B/T: R/R
H/W: 5’10” 180lbs
2025 Stats:

Team (LVL)	G	PA	HR	SB	BB%	K%	AVG	OBP	SLG
CLW (A-)	69	316	11	10	10.1%	16.1%	.285	.377	.452
JS (A+)	46	198	4	14	11.1%	20.7%	.256	.348	.369
REA (AA)	5	24	0	0	8.3%	25.0%	.182	.250	.273
Total	120	538	15	24	10.4%	18.2%	.270	.361	.413

Role: Above Average Regular
Risk: Medium – Escobar struggled to hit for power in higher levels, but he showed a great approach and contact ability in Clearwater that did not change much at higher levels. His defense is just fine at second base, and he does not really have a good home further down the defensive spectrum.
Overview: Escobar entered the 2025 season poised to break out and then did just that in Clearwater, hitting .360/.461/.627 over the first month of the season. His underlying metrics with Clearwater were great as well, with 80th+ percentile exit velocities and zone contact rates. He chases too much, but that aggressive approach also means he is letting it fly vs pitches in his part of the zone. He predictably had his contact rates slip some when he was promoted to Jersey Shore, but they still were fairly good. Escobar still struggles with contact quality with too many pop-ups and not enough balls driven in the air. If he can maximize his contact quality, he might be a 25-30 home run hitter, but it is more likely he ends up somewhere in the 15-20 home run range, with hopefully more doubles than he is hitting now. If he can stick at second base, he has a chance to be a plus offensive hitter for the position. Sticking at second is probably the bigger question, as his defense is not particularly great, with some highlight plays, but also a share of easy miscues and range issues. Third base is a possible position for him, but his arm is more fine than great. Escobar has already lost a good amount of speed and will need to keep his body in check going forward.
2026 Outlook: Escobar had 46 sort of fine games at Jersey Shore and a 5 game cameo with Reading. The Phillies likely want him to show up to camp ready to start in AA. He is Rule 5 eligible after the season and could be positionally blocked, making him near the top of the list of prospects most likely to be traded. If he is around all year, he probably gets a late trip to AAA.
ETA: 2027
Previous Rank: 11