Did Phillies land the next Gerrit Cole?
Gerrit Cole remains the most coveted pitcher on the market. As such, it is going to take a massive financial commitment to land the right-hander, who is coming off an utterly dominant season in which he posted a 2.50 ERA and set a record for strikeout rate. Zack Wheeler didn't
Why was Wheeler so high on so many offseason shopping lists? And how did a pitcher with a relatively modest career track record land such a lucrative deal?
Most importantly, Wheeler was already good for the past two years with the Mets. The righty posted a 3.65 ERA and 3.37 FIP over 60 starts and 377 2/3 innings from 2018-19, striking out a batter per inning. Depending on whether you prefer the FanGraphs or Baseball-Reference version of WAR, Wheeler was either MLB’s 10th or 19th most valuable pitcher during that time.
But signing a free agent is about the future, not the past. And that’s where Wheeler gets even more interesting. With this deal, the Phillies might be thinking not only that Wheeler can continue his recent success, but also, that the best could be still to come. What if Wheeler can follow Cole’s lead and, with the right sort of guidance, make a leap forward?
Here is some fuel for that particular fire, from Wheeler’s Baseball Savant player page:
Wheeler and Cole are both 6-foot-4 right-handers. Both are currently 29 years old. Both were high first-round picks -- Wheeler No. 6 overall in 2009 and Cole No.1 in ‘11. But that match score isn’t about these superficial details.
Rather, this is about the speed and movement of their pitches. And on a scale from zero up to one, no starting pitcher rated more similarly to Wheeler than Cole (0.94), who was a bit ahead of
That doesn’t mean Wheeler can or will do what Cole just did. That bar is about as high as it gets. But it helps explain why at least some teams might see Wheeler as capable of more than his past results -- just as Cole was when the Astros acquired him from the Pirates two years ago.
As a National League talent evaluator told Feinsand earlier this offseason, speaking of Wheeler, “He’ll find a team that is willing to bet on him and his upside.”
That was clearly the case, with several teams reportedly bidding for his services despite Wheeler's checkered injury history, and the fact that he received a qualifying offer that tied him to the loss of a Draft pick
Those concerns aside, here is a look at why Wheeler might have captured some teams’ imaginations this winter, and ultimately snagged a nine-figure contract:
Two Ps in a pod
The match score isn’t dependent on pitch types, per se, although Cole and Wheeler throw the same five offerings (in different proportions): four-seam fastball, sinker, slider, curveball and changeup. More precisely, it’s about velocity and movement -- which obviously correlate well to pitch types.
The algorithm considers each of a pitcher’s pitches individually, compares it to every other pitch thrown in the Majors, and determines which ones have the same velocity/movement profile, and who threw them. Then it considers each of a pitcher’s games, and which games by other pitchers had the most matching pitches.
Cole’s score of 0.94 relative to Wheeler means that in 94% of Wheeler’s games in 2019, at least half the pitches he threw matched the profile of pitches thrown by Cole. This visual representation of the horizontal and vertical movement (in inches) of each of their pitches also illustrates the similarities, with a great deal of overlap between the two (Each color corresponds to a pitch type, with four-seamers in red, sinkers in orange, sliders in yellow, curves in blue and changeups in green).
Take those four-seamers. Cole’s average velocity (97.1 mph) ranked third among the 137 starters who threw the pitch at least 400 times in 2019. Wheeler (96.8 mph) was just behind him, in sixth. Cole gets more vertical movement (or “rise”) on his four-seamer, but the two pitches have similar horizontal movement -- 3.3 inches above average for Wheeler, and 3.6 for Cole (compared with those of similar velocity).
Next steps
When Cole went from Pittsburgh to Houston before the 2018 season, he cut his sinker usage by more than half, while throwing more four-seamers and breaking balls. He also dramatically increased his spin rate (on four-seamers and breaking balls) and began elevating his four-seamer more.
It’s too much to expect Wheeler’s results to follow suit. But it’s also not so difficult to see how a similar plan might unfold.
While more than half of Cole’s pitches this year were four-seamers, Wheeler went to his 30% of the time, almost even with his sinker usage. Yet the four-seamer was the far more effective pitch, in terms of opponent slugging (.336 vs. .454) and whiff rate (27.1% vs. 15.9%), as the sinker was hit much harder than it was in 2018, along with a drop in ground-ball rate.
Wheeler also threw his four-seamer a quarter of a foot lower, on average, than Cole, going to the upper third of the zone or above far less often.
Meanwhile, Wheeler threw about 30% breaking balls this season, nearly identical to Cole’s 2017 rate, which then jumped by about 10 percentage points and accompanied a significant increase in effectiveness.
Zack Wheeler, Filthy 93mph Slider. 😷 pic.twitter.com/jGLHTCPBfq
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) May 21, 2019
It should go without saying that pitching is not a one-size-fits-all endeavor, and it’s about more than velocity and pitch movement. There isn’t one simple plan to unlock greatness in every arm, and even a state-of-the-art and personalized player development program isn’t always going to overcome Major League challenges.
In other words, Wheeler plus more breaking balls and high four-seamers, and fewer sinkers, does not equal Cole. It’s likely that no combination of adjustments would.
But the current version of Wheeler is already quite good. The tantalizing possibility of more -- at a fraction of Cole’s cost -- makes Wheeler an exciting addition for the Phillies and a player to watch in 2020 and beyond.
Andrew Simon is a research analyst for MLB.com. Follow him on Twitter @AndrewSimonMLB.
