‘Phillies Extra’ Q&A: Luke Murton on the 2026 outlook for the top prospects

No matter what happens over the next few weeks in free agency and the trade market, one thing appears certain about the Phillies in 2026.

It will be graduation season.

Justin Crawford and Andrew Painter are poised to figure prominently in the Phillies’ plans — probably as soon as opening day — after spending 2025 in the minors. Fellow top prospect Aidan Miller may not be far behind.

» READ MORE: The Phillies are eyeing an infusion of youth for 2026. Here’s how three top prospects can fit.

And their looming major league debuts are as essential to an aging Phillies roster as any offseason move that the team will make, including the potential re-signings of Kyle Schwarber and J.T. Realmuto.

Minor league director Luke Murton recently joined Phillies Extra, The Inquirer’s baseball podcast, to discuss the state of the farm system, with a focus on Crawford, Painter, and Miller. Here’s an excerpt from our conversation, edited for brevity and clarity.

Watch the full interview below and subscribe to the Phillies Extra podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

A: Any time a player performs the way Justin performed, I think the conversation will always happen. When you’ve got a guy that’s hitting .330 at triple A and is athletic and can play center field and do all these things, I think at the end of day, that’s always a conversation: Should we bring Justin up? When should we bring Justin up? The one thing that’s good for us is our major league club is very, very good. Not the best thing for some prospects. I think if you look at a lot of the organizations, Justin would have probably been in the big leagues at some point this year because of how well he performed.

» READ MORE: The Phillies are eyeing an infusion of youth for 2026. Here’s how three top prospects can fit.

I do think his maturation in the minor leagues in the full season of triple A will help him heading into this year. So, yeah, I think at different points of the year [a call-up] was obviously closer than others. He’s a talented player who we believe is major league-ready. And I think he could have been ready for a lot of teams last year. I think just given where we were at, where he was at, it just probably wasn’t the best at the time. So I think him more than anybody is looking forward to the 2026 opportunity he’s going to have in front of him.

A: … I think Justin’s more than capable of playing center field. We view him internally as a center fielder. We’ll see how the offseason goes. But I think, right now, he’s geared to center field. That’s where he’s going to play, and that’s where he’s going to be with us for a very long time.

A: … He did a tremendous job this year. We had expectations on him. I think the industry had expectations on him. Honestly, some of these expectations we put on players is unfair. I think he’s a guy that’s just coming back from Tommy John, that pitched over 100 innings, was healthy and at a level he’d never been without an offseason to where he could really progress and do what he wanted to do.

So, I was very pleased, very satisfied. … You hear a lot of statistics of what guys do their first year out of Tommy John and how much better the second year goes. So at the end of the day, Andy’s a very, very talented kid who’s a great kid. I think he accomplished a ton this year. I think next year, he’s looking forward to accomplishing more. I think he’s down in Florida, at home, and he’s working. I know he goes in and out of Cressey [Sports Performance in Florida], spends a lot of time there, which, they’ve done a great job with him over the years. So he’s down there. He popped in here [in Clearwater, Fla.] to the high-performance camp the other day. But he looks great. He’s healthy. He’s ready to go.

A: … He wanted to prove that he can play shortstop. I think he’s done that internally. I think he’s done that to the industry. Where we’re at now is, Trea Turner is a phenomenal shortstop, played great defensively, led the league in hitting. It’s not easy to go replace that in the big leagues. But I think at the end of the day, we’ve talked to Aidan about possibly doing some third [base] and moving around the infield a little bit, and he’s open to it.

» READ MORE: Andrew Painter isn’t the only pitching prospect who might help the Phillies in 2026

And as far as him being in the mix next year, you never know. He’s a very talented player. Don’t want to put too much on him too soon. He’ll be a big-league spring-training invite. You bring him in and you see what we’ve got, we see where the roster ends up throughout the year, and you never know … Obviously, that’s [president] Dave [Dombrowski] and [general manager] Preston [Mattingly] kind of doing that. But I think from a talent standpoint, from a readiness standpoint … the ones that are really good, they always are ready a little sooner than you think they are. So I think we’ll see. I think, at the end of day, he might move around defensively a little bit to get somewhere off shortstop. He’ll be in big league spring training, and he’s looking for the opportunity to prove that he’s ready.

A: I don’t think you rule anything out as a possibility ever. Because I think, at the end of the day, it’s [about] how do we best service our major league team? And I think somebody like Aidan would be completely willing to go wherever he could to do that. But right now I think it’s more to say moving around the infield, see if there’s a spot there potentially ever in the future. And, again, I don’t think outfield is out of the question, but not something that I think we’ve kicked around too much recently.

Check out the full interview for Murton’s assessment of several other prospects, including pitcher Gage Wood, outfielder Gabriel Rincones Jr., and more.