You almost knew it would come down to this. The Mets — five games out of the wild card with 15 games left to play, clinging to any semblance of playoff hope by the tips of their fingernails — have to face Zack Wheeler on Friday.
This is the same Zack Wheeler who joined the organization in 2011 as the physical representation of turning the page from the Carlos Beltran era. The same Wheeler who pitched five solid seasons for the Mets, interrupted by a UCL tear and subsequent setbacks that held him out from Sept. 25, 2014 to April 7, 2017. The same Wheeler who recovered from that injury to throw 180 innings in 2018 and 2019, and reportedly checked in about re-signing with the Mets when he hit free agency, only to hear “crickets” from Brodie Van Wagenen’s front office.
Imagine how differently this Mets season could have played out with Wheeler still a part of their rotation.
Whenever a player goes to a new team, one has to consider the factors there that have contributed to their newfound success. It’s possible that the Mets would have never unlocked whatever it is that the Phillies have this season. The Mets knew what type of talent they had in Wheeler, though, and the previous regime’s lowballing is going to muck things up for this current one.
On the field, the Mets’ hitters have to stare down Wheeler’s 97 mile per hour fastball, the one that becomes even more difficult to deal with when anticipating his wicked curveball and slider that have been harder to hit. According to Baseball Savant, the league is hitting .159 against Wheeler’s curveball and .200 on the slider. Those pitches have accounted for 34 and 61, respectively, of Wheeler’s National League-leading 225 strikeouts. In four starts against his old mates this season, Wheeler has 31 strikeouts to five walks, holding the Mets to a .217 average and leading the Phillies to wins in each of the last two. The 31-year-old has hit his long-rumored, never-before-seen stride.
“I think I could take the next step,” Wheeler said at his first spring training as a Phillie. “I want to win a Cy Young or two. Make the All-Star team. Carry us to the playoffs. Now I want bigger and better things, winning the World Series, that type of stuff.”
He’s already got the All-Star part out of the way. A Cy Young could be coming soon too, and even if Max Scherzer or Corbin Burnes swipes it from him, Wheeler is all but guaranteed for a top-five finish in the voting. Van Wagenen surely didn’t see this coming from the pitcher who he famously said the Mets helped “parlay two good half-seasons over the last five into $118 million”, referencing the deal Wheeler got, and is making good on, from Philadelphia.
Wheeler plainly stated that he wasn’t surprised when the Mets didn’t bring him back, saying “that’s how they roll.”
Now, Wheeler rolls back into Citi Field — he’s got 17 strikeouts in his last two starts, in which the Brewers and Rockies choked one run out of him in 12.2 innings — hoping to plan the Mets’ funeral. The Mets have had an irrefutably bad time in the batter’s box this season, but they’ve had an especially hard time against fastballs, sliders and curveballs.
Per FanGraphs, the Mets have been worth negative-1.8 runs against fastballs, -6.0 on sliders and -12.4 against curveballs. Their misery against curves makes them the worst team in the league against that pitch, with Michael Conforto (.175 batting average, .237 slugging percentage on breaking pitches) and Kevin Pillar (.124 and .258) bearing the brunt of it. Guess who keeps an elite fastball, slider and curveball in his back pocket, getting whiffs over 25% of the time on each one?
Twisting the knife even further, the only pitch type that the Mets have had sustained success against is sinkers. During his last season in Queens, Wheeler threw a sinker nearly 30% of the time. This year, as he’s become the pitcher the Mets always dreamed of, that’s down to 17.7%.
Van Wagenen may be long gone, but his administration’s influence is still being felt in all the worst ways, and on Friday the Mets will be confronted by that from sixty feet and six inches away.
