The most critical Philadelphia Phillies question of the offseason was answered with a emphatic bang Monday morning when the team signed ace Zack Wheeler to a three-year contract extension running through the 2027 campaign.
The deal pays Wheeler $126 million, according to a source with knowledge of the situation, which is an annual average value of $42 million per year. With a salary of $42 million, Wheeler’s deal is the most lucrative extension in baseball history in terms of average annual value.
Wheeler had been scheduled to test the free agency market after the 2024 season. The Phillies were determined not to let that happen. The question remained whether Wheeler’s camp would want to re-sign ahead of free agency given how fruitful and robust a market he would command.
This deal, however, achieves the goal of making him the fourth-highest paid player ever on an annual basis. There is the Shohei Ohtani contract from the Dodgers which is in a class of its own, Max Scherzer at $43.33M per year and Justin Verlander at $43.3M. Then Wheeler.
Wheeler turns 34 on May 30 and will be 37 early in the final season of his contract. The Phillies are clearly confident he will continue to age well. The best seasons of his career have come in the last four years while donning red and white pinstripes.
Since signing his initial five-year, $118 million contract prior to 2020, Wheeler has posted a record of 43-25 with a sparkling 3.06 ERA in 101 regular-season starts. In the playoffs, he has really earned his money, being one of the most effective starting pitchers in MLB history, with a 2.42 ERA and 0.73 WHIP in 11 games (10 starts). His WHIP and opponents’ on-base percentage are both the lowest ever for a pitcher in the postseason.
That first contract Wheeler signed with the Phillies turned out to be a bargain. He signed it the same winter the Yankees signed Gerrit Cole to a nine-year, $326 million contract. Wheeler has been on par with Cole since then, if not outperformed him given the postseason success.
It was a mixed bag of opinions when the Phillies doled out that much to Wheeler. He was forced to sit out two full seasons in 2015 and 2016 while with the New York Mets because of an elbow injury that required Tommy John surgery. He had excellent second halves in 2018 and 2019 but never a consistently dominant full season. That is all behind him now in Philadelphia.
He has led all pitchers in Wins Above Replacement over the last four seasons, he has finished second in Cy Young voting (in a year when he threw 46 more innings than the winner), won a Gold Glove and made an All-Star team.
He and his wife Dominique have also started a family with three children since he joined the Phillies, including a new-born daughter named Winter last week. Zack was away from the ballclub for three days on paternity leave, returned during the weekend and signed his new deal Monday morning.
Now he can pitch without stress in 2024 and the Phillies can rest easy knowing one of the most important players in baseball will still be with their organization.
