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If you ever needed an example of how quickly wins can change the tone of a fan base, check out this last week for the Phillies.
On the morning of Sunday, August 1, the Phillies prepared for their series final in Pittsburgh after losing the first two games to a Pirates team 25 games under .500.
Acquisition of trade deadline Kyle Gibson started this game and took the win in his debut, the Phils scored 15 points and they haven’t stopped winning since.
A week ago, conversations were about poor defense, no depth of rotation, a shaky enclosure and a 10th straight season without a playoff.
Now? People are wondering if the Phillies could have the National League MVP and Cy Young.
Bryce Harper, the OPS majors second half leader, is pushing for the MVP.
And Zack Wheeler is now the favorite to win the NL Cy Young award.
Wheeler, who threw a two-hit shutout to beat the Mets on Sunday, leads the majors in innings (156), strikeouts (181), full games (3) and shutouts (2).
It has an ERA of 2.42 and a WHIP of 0.99. If you care about Wins Above Replacement, Wheeler ranks second in the majors behind Shohei Ohtani, according to Baseball-Reference metrics. And it’s not the second among the pitchers, it’s the second among all major leagues.
The Phillies have 50 more games to go and Wheeler plans to pitch 10. From that point on, it’s his prize to lose. He is now listed as NL Cy Young’s favorite on PointsBet with odds of +190 (a $ 10 bet would net $ 19).
Wheeler’s advantage is not insurmountable, however. Walker Buehler is there with him. Buehler is 12-2 with a best NL ERA of 2.13. He pitched 8 fewer innings than Wheeler and has 29 fewer strikeouts. Buehler pitched at least six innings in 22 of his 23 starts. He allowed two points or less in 18 of 23. He’s always been as excellent as Wheeler, he just hasn’t gone that far in games as often.
There is some distance between Wheeler and Buehler and the other suitors.
Kevin Gausman (2.31 ERA) lags Wheeler by nearly 25 innings and has a 6.11 ERA on the all-star break.
Jacob deGrom came out with a forearm injury and pitched 63 innings less than Wheeler.
The Brewers’ top three starters have had some great years. Brandon Woodruff has a 2.23 ERA, Freddy Peralta has a 2.21 and Corbin Burnes a 2.39. All three have huge numbers of strikeouts. But Peralta and Burnes are trailing Wheeler by over 40 innings and Woodruff trailing him by 20.
Wheeler’s workload is impossible to ignore in this race.
“I compare his numbers to anyone’s,” manager Joe Girardi said after Sunday’s win, the Phillies’ eighth in a row. “You look at what he’s done for this club, the innings he’s recorded, how dominant he’s been. I think he’s as much in the picture as anyone else.”
Wheeler has had a great season in 2020 but has taken things to a different level this year. His fastball averaged 97 mph in each inning from first to ninth. He had career-best speed on Sunday against his former team, needing just four innings to throw the most 99-mph fastballs he has ever thrown in a game.
Wheeler signed with the Phillies two winters ago for $ 118 million over five years, an average annual value of $ 23.6 million. Players received 37% of their salary in 2020 when the season was reduced to 60 games due to the pandemic, so he earned $ 8.73 million.
To date, he’s made around $ 26 million as a Phillie. According to Fangraphs, who has a metric that converts a player’s WAR into a dollar scale based on what he would earn in free agency, Wheeler was worth $ 60.8 million here.
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