Ray Flowers and Vlad Sedler take counter positions on a single player, one for, one against. Which one of our experts do you agree with? Does either strike a knockout blow? Is there a TKO? Is there a need for another round? Two or our best analysts give their thoughts on a player for the upcoming sesaon allowing you to be the judge as to which side makes the stronger arguement, for or against the player.
Zack Wheeler, SP, Mets
By Ray Flowers
The former Giants’ prospect had a really nice season last year with a 3.31 ERA, 1.12 WHIP and an 8.84 K/9 rate. So why the concern? You know where The Oracle is going with this one, don’t cha? Let’s talk the workload totals of the righty. Here we go (all numbers minors/majors): 2010 (58.2 IP), 2011 (115), 2012 (149), 2013 (168.2), 2014 (185.1), 2015 (zero), 2016 (1.0), 2017 (86.1) and 2018 (187.1). Put it another way. Wheeler threw 187.1 innings last season after throwing a total of 87.1 innings the previous three year. Put yet another way, he threw 100 more innings last season than the previous three seasons. Put it a final way, Wheeler threw more than double the innings last season that he threw the previous three seasons. A normal growth pattern would never suggest, ever, that a still as yet unproven hurler, who basically missed two seasons, then threw less than 90 innings the following season should see that innings total rise to over 180 the following season. In an era of pitch counts and worrying about every little workload related issue with an arm, the Mets were flat out negligent in the way that they ran Wheeler out there last season. The question is, will any of this matter for 2019? The answer is we don’t know. What I do know is that it’s rare to see what happened with Wheeler occur in baseball in the 21st century, and I don’t likely paying full price for an outlier. I’m also unconvinced that he will be able to sustain his growth in the walk category from last season, as controlling the strike zone has always been an issue for the talented gun slinger (it doesn’t add to his argument in the affirmative to note that the number of pitches he threw in the strike zone last season was within one percentage point of his career rate).
By Vlad Sedler
One of my favorite second-tier starting pitcher options this season as we finally saw him hit his stride and exceed our expectations in 2018. As is the case with most talented pitchers, it all comes down to health. The former sixth-overall pick of Ray’s Giants was masterful last season, maintaining an impressive .245 wOBA against righties and posted an incredible stretch of six starts last August where he allowed just five runs and a 43:8 strikeouts-to-walk ratio in 40 innings where he was virtually unhittable. The most important part of his game that improved was his ability to master the strike zone and avoid walking batters. His 7.4 percent walk rate was a clear improvement on the 10 percent rate he owned in his three seasons prior. Wheeler added a splitter to his already impressive arsenal last season to give him five offerings to fool hitters with. His increased usage on a wicked curveball that held opposing batters to a miniscule .172 batting average. Concerns of his massive innings bump from the previous season (over 100) gives us a slight cause for concern, but this isn’t a guy with limited experience making the jump from facing minor league hitters to major league ones. This is a legit stud with ace potential with great pedigree who just happens to pitch in of the league’s best pitching parks. As of early February, he is being taken in the top-100 overall as the SP26 in NFBC drafts and I just can’t see a reason why guys like Jameson Taillon and Jack Flaherty are being drafted a full 30 picks ahead of him. Same thing with AL pitchers Mike Clevinger and Jose Berrios. Wheeler fully deserves be in their company and has so far seen very little helium on a fair-priced ADP.
