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Philadelphia Phillies starting pitcher Zack Wheeler is a fantasy baseball bust and overvalued draft target for the 2020 season. Kipp Heisterman explains why Wheeler should be faded in fantasy drafts.
The Philadelphia Phillies finished the 2019 season with a record of 81-81, which was only good enough for a fourth-place finish in the NL East and was nowhere near good enough for a postseason birth. The team was not pleased with the finish and subsequently made a change at the helm with the addition of Joe Girardi.
Aside from the new manager, the Phillies have also shown their win-now mentality with the additions of Didi Gregorius and Zack Wheeler via free agency. The addition of Wheeler is especially significant as the Phillies will look to improve upon their stater ERA, which ranked 17th in the MLB in 2019. Wheeler will slot into the number two spot in the rotation between Aaron Nola and Jake Arrieta.
The question for 2020 is whether or not Wheeler will be able to put up the type of performance the Phillies desperately need him to have in order for the organization to return to the postseason, which they have not made since 2011. A deeper look into his advanced metrics should help shed some light on this question and tell us if he is being drafted at the correct ADP.
Wheeling and Dealing?
Wheeler parlayed a solid 2018 and decent 2019 season into a five-year $118 million contract with the Phillies during the offseason. 2019 was a season in which he threw 195.1 innings with a 3.96 ERA, 1.26 WHIP, and 195 strikeouts. While the nearly one strikeout per inning is respectable, the ERA and WHIP leave something to be desired. Wheeler relies on a six-pitch mix, which includes his four-seamer, sinker, slider, changeup, curve, and split-finger. A glimpse into each pitch sheds some light on what we could expect moving forward in 2020.
As you can see from the chart above, Wheeler relies heavily on his four-seamer and sinker as they accounted for 59% of his total pitches in 2019. While the four-seamer has been solid for him as noted by the .230xBA and 27.1% whiff rate it produced, the sinker has not been as effective. Wheeler used the sinker at a rate of 29%, which is almost identical to the 30% usage of the four-seamer, however, the results are much different. In 2019, he allowed an abysmal .298 average against with a .281xBA and paired those with a .488 slugging percentage all while only managing a whiff rate of 15.9%. The whiff rate is especially concerning since he relies heavily on the strikeout, yet produces the lowest swing and miss rate with the pitch.
Aside from having a rather ineffective second pitch, he now transitions to a much better hitters park. In 2019, Citizens Bank Park ranked 10th in terms of runs scored and seventh in terms of home runs, compared to his former Citi Field, which ranked 26th and 16th, respectively. In 2019, Wheeler gave up a total of 22 home runs, half of which came at home. We could certainly see this number increase (on a pro-rated schedule) in 2020. Keep in mind, this also assumes teams will be playing in their home parks during the 2020 season.
Conclusion
Overall, Zack Wheeler could be a risky selection in 2020. For him to achieve the most success, he will likely have to cut back on the use of his sinker and rely a bit more on his offspeed stuff as this is where he has shown a ton of success. He currently has an ADP of 108 and is being taken as the 27th pitcher off the board ahead of pitchers like Madison Bumgarner, Frankie Montas, and Carlos Carrasco. While this is not a completely outrageous price to pay for Wheeler, you may be better off with one of the above-mentioned arms at this price.
