The Baseball Effect

Per Ken Rosenthal on Twitter, the Philidelphia Phillies have signed free-agent pitcher Zack Wheeler for $118 million over five years. This gives him an AAV of $23.60M. Surprisingly enough, we already have multiple moves to start of the hot stove season. First, it was Grandal and now Wheeler.

Zack Wheeler has been able to create four wins above replacement in each of the past two seasons, a large bump from his 2017 season (only 85 IP) and almost double from 2014 (before his TJ surgery). It seems as though the Zack Wheeler that the Giants drafted back in 2009 is finally here but let us dig a little deeper and see what the Phillies can expect from the 29-year-old.

Wheeler tore his UCL back in 2015 leaving his durablitity up for debate. Although almost every major league pitcher that throws as hard as Wheeler does, will eventually start to feel a little bit of that wear and tare at some point. It has taken time but Wheeler is another example of players coming back from one of the most feared injuries in the game. Initially Wheeler came back losing a tick or two off of his fastball. In 2017, he threw a whole mile-per-hour slower than he did in previous years, but that hasn’t stopped him. After a 2018 season that saw his average fastball velocity flucuate, 2019 shows that Wheeler was throwing harder than he ever had prior to the surgery, and he did it for a majority of the season too, losing just a little bit of gas as the season came to a close.  Good sign for the Phillies.

Wheeler uses his fastball about 55%-60% of the time, and in 2019, was able to create whiffs on the pitch almost 11% of the time he threw it, a career high. This bodes well for fantasy owners in leagues where K’s are heavily weighted. Wheelers vertical movement on the pitch hasn’t changed all that much only flucuating slightly as the season goes on, but his horizontal movement seems to have changed a bit more. Per Brooks Baseball, Wheeler is at times getting almost 60% more horizontal movement on his fastball, allowing him and his slider to be a bit more deceptive and miss bats. This is supported by a barrel rate of 3.7%, which was 27th in the league among pitchers with at least 200 batted ball events (according to Baseball Savant).

This seems like a step in the right direction for Philidelphia, a team that was considered by no small number of people a dissapointment last season. Over the past two seasons Wheeler has pitched at least 180 innings and while his ERA was only four points off from a 4.00 earned runs on average in 2019, his FIP has been below 3.50 in both seasons. Barring any further setback, Wheelers seems primed to throw his first 200 inngin season, giving him SP2 value with the upside of a top-20 pitcher in most fantasy circles. The only thing that may be of a concern for Wheeler in his trip to the city of brotherly love is his icrease in home run rate. From 2018 to 2019, Wheeler’s home run rate increase by .32, meaning he gave up an extra home run about every third game or so. Now the “juice ball”, as some call it, may be able to account for most of the difference here, but what a bout 2020?

Wheeler is moving from a ballpark that has suppressed home runs, to a ball park that has historically been one of the most home run friendly ballparks in baseball. I’d like to note, the increased horizontal movement on his fastball could also slightly affect Wheelers home run rate, as pitchers with more horizontal movement as opposed to vertical movement are more prone to home runs. With that said, this could leave fantasy managers feeling a little less confident in the 29-year-old on a start-to-start basis. Wheeler’s pitch quality and game knowledge is the highest it has ever been and there has been talk of the baseball having some calculable differences from last year, which could potentially help Wheeler limit his home run totals, although there is potential for the park to even things out if it swings that direction. Whether or not that means the ball will have more or less drag is to be seen. Either way Wheeler will be a huge part of the Phillies rotation and could be a nice value in the middle rounds once draft season roles around.