Phillies ace Zack Wheeler signed a three-year, $126MM contract extension in March 2024 that covers the 2025-27 seasons. It appears as though that will be the final deal of Wheeler’s career, as The Athletic’s Matt Gelb writes that Wheeler is aiming to retire following the 2027 campaign, at age 37.
Plenty can change within the next two and a half years, of course, and even such teammates as J.T. Realmuto have some doubt that Wheeler would really hang up the cleats if he is still healthy and pitching well by the time the 2027 season wraps. That said, Wheeler said “it’ll be easy to walk away” from baseball — not because of any burnout or lack of drive, but simply because Wheeler is looking forward to spending time with his family.
Should the right-hander continue on his current track through his planned retirement date, Wheeler will surely draw some attention from Cooperstown voters. Since the start of the 2018 season, Wheeler leads all pitchers in fWAR (35.7), and only teammate Aaron Nola has thrown more innings than Wheeler’s 1289 frames. He has a 3.14 ERA over those eight-plus years, and a 3.31 ERA for the entirety of his 11 big league seasons.
Selected sixth overall by the Giants in the 2009 draft, Wheeler has more than lived up to the high expectations that came with that high pedigree, though he famously never pitched a game in a San Francisco uniform. The Giants dealt Wheeler to the Mets at the 2011 trade deadline for Carlos Beltran, as the Giants made the bold decision to acquire a star rental player in order to make a bid for the playoffs. San Francisco’s three World Series titles from 2010-14 give the organization some leeway when looking back at “what if?” scenarios, yet it is intriguing to wonder if keeping Wheeler might have allowed the Giants to extend their contention window deeper into the decade.
That said, Wheeler’s time in New York was interrupted by injury, as he didn’t pitch at all in 2015-16 due to both a Tommy John surgery and a strained flexor tendon. He naturally showed some rust in his return to the mound in 2017, but then pitched well enough over the next two seasons to make him one of the most prized members of the 2019-20 free agent class. The Phillies inked Wheeler to a five-year, $118MM contract that now stands as one of the best free agent pitching deals in history, given how Wheeler has elevated his game since arriving in the City of Brotherly Love.
Wheeler has a 2.93 ERA, 27.5% strikeout rate, and a 5.7% walk rate over 911 1/3 regular-season innings in a Phillies uniform, as well as a 2.18 ERA over 70 1/3 playoff innings. Wheeler has twice been an NL All-Star during his time with the Phils, and he was the runner-up in NL Cy Young Award voting in both 2021 and 2024. The righty is only a couple of weeks removed from his 35th birthday, but he continues to be one of the league’s top arms this season, with a 2.85 ERA, 6% walk rate, and a 32% strikeout rate that is on pace for a new career high.
Extending Wheeler helped the Phillies keep their rotation cornerstone in place through now what looks to be the rest of his career, and the team has already made some preparations for the post-Wheeler era. Cristopher Sanchez was inked to an extension that (if club options are exercised) could run through 2030. Nola was re-signed to a new contract during the 2023-24 offseason, though Nola has been quite shaky this year. Younger pitchers like Andrew Painter and Mick Abel are viewed as the future of the rotation, plus it seems likely that the Phils will keep spending big, so a future free agent splash to add pitching is certainly possible down the road.
