Last night Zack Wheeler wrapped up his sophomore campaign against the Nationals. In his first full season in the majors, Wheeler pitched to a 3.54 ERA over 185.1 innings. His .500 record (11-11) isn’t necessarily reflective of the type of season he had but there are areas for him to improve heading into next season.
What we learned about Wheeler is important. While he’s not Matt Harvey, Wheeler is a guy that can pitch at the top of any rotation. He learned to battle this season, fighting through moments of weakness and coming through strong. There were multiple games in which Wheeler didn’t have his best stuff but fought through and picked up a win.
Looking at 2014 against 2013, Wheeler lowered his walks per 9 innings from 4.1 to 3.8. While doing that, he raised his strikeouts per nine innings from 7.6 to 9.1. A major area of concern for Wheeler was his pitch counts. Only 17 pitchers in the major leagues threw more pitches per start than Wheeler and his 17.8 pitches per inning were the highest in the national league (he was 2nd in Major League Baseball to the Rays Jake Odorizzi).
Both Zack Wheeler and Jon Niese finished in the top 20 in ERA in the National League this year and there’s a lot of promise heading into 2015. With the return of Harvey and the emergence of Jacob deGrom, we’re looking at an incredible rotation next year.
