Back in August of 2013, after he made his 10th start of the season, we ran a comparison of Zack Wheeler to what Matt Harvey had done in his first 10 starts in 2012. For fun, let’s throw Jacob deGrom into the mix and see how his numbers stack up to his more heralded teammates. Because if we asked at the beginning of 2012 which pitcher in the farm system was most likely to win Rookie of the Year honors, no one would have picked deGrom.
The comparison is set at 10 starts because that’s how many Harvey made in his major league debut. In his rookie season, Wheeler ended up with 17 while deGrom notched 22 last year. So, while recognizing it’s not the full year for either of the non-Harvey hurlers, here’s how they matched up after their first 10 MLB starts:
| IP | W-L | ERA | H | R | ER | HR | BB | K | WHIP | BABIP | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| deGrom | 59.2 | 1-5 | 3.77 | 58 | 25 | 25 | 5 | 26 | 53 | 1.408 | .317 |
| Harvey | 59.1 | 3-5 | 2.73 | 42 | 19 | 18 | 5 | 26 | 70 | 1.146 | .268 |
| Wheeler | 57 | 5-2 | 3.63 | 51 | 26 | 23 | 9 | 28 | 45 | 1.386 | .259 |
deGrom finished with such a flourish that we tend to forget that while he was good, he didn’t step into the majors great like Harvey did. Still, it’s hard not to notice how eerily similar these three were in terms of IP and BB in their first 10 games for the Mets. The three things that stand out the most are the hits allowed by Harvey, the strikeouts by Harvey and the HR allowed by Wheeler. One could also point to the W-L record of deGrom as a separator but hopefully we’ve gotten past the point where we look at a pitcher’s record as a prime measure of his quality.
Okay, let’s run the same chart, except this time instead of using Harvey’s rookie output of 10 games as the comparison, let’s use deGrom’s 22. It introduces the less than perfect idea of combining years for two pitchers (and one of those being a partial one) and not the other but let’s see if anything interesting pops up in this look:
| IP | W-L | ERA | H | R | ER | HR | BB | K | WHIP | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| deGrom | 140.1 | 9-6 | 2.69 | 117 | 44 | 42 | 7 | 43 | 144 | 1.140 |
| Harvey | 142.1 | 8-5 | 2.40 | 99 | 39 | 38 | 9 | 45 | 159 | 1.012 |
| Wheeler | 129.1 | 8-7 | 3.55 | 121 | 55 | 51 | 12 | 57 | 115 | 1.376 |
While in the first chart, deGrom appeared similar to Wheeler, here he jumps up to join Harvey while Wheeler falls off the pace. One thing to keep in mind is that Wheeler was poor in his first nine starts of his sophomore season and five of those starts are added here. But Wheeler’s two biggest flaws – his inability to go deep in games and his penchant for walks – stand out in this chart.
Let’s run one last chart, this one the complete totals for all three pitchers. Since the three pitchers will not have similar games, let’s use more rate stats in this comparison.
| IP | W-L | ERA | FIP | xFIP | H/9 | HR/9 | BB/9 | K/9 | WHIP | BABIP | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| deGrom | 140.1 | 9-6 | 2.69 | 2.67 | 3.03 | 7.5 | 0.45 | 2.76 | 9.24 | 1.140 | .297 |
| Harvey | 237.2 | 12-10 | 2.39 | 2.33 | 2.84 | 6.7 | 0.45 | 2.16 | 9.88 | 0.985 | .276 |
| Wheeler | 285.1 | 18-16 | 3.50 | 3.77 | 3.74 | 8.1 | 0.76 | 3.94 | 8.55 | 1.339 | .295 |
Wheeler’s been good, deGrom’s been great and Harvey’s been outstanding. It’s easy to forget with him being out for over a year how dominating Harvey was in his first season-plus with the team. It’s not realistic to expect him to pick up where he left off but if somehow Harvey could do that, 2015 would be a fun year, indeed.
We saw Wheeler stumble out of the gate in his second season in the majors. Nobody expects deGrom to do that in 2015 but we should keep in the back of our mind there’s a reason for the term, “sophomore slump.”
Yet if we put on our rose-colored glasses, we can imagine that deGrom pitches like he did his final 12 starts of the year, Harvey comes back healthy at his established level and Wheeler pitches like he did in the heart of 2014.
Yes, it’s thoughts like that which carry us through stormy Novembers. Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!
Is Outstanding is better than Great…????
There is always that big “IF” 🙂
You’re right Brian. Wheeler’s inability to go deep in games is a direct correlation to his hideous amount of walks per game. If the Met pitching coaches can just cut down by 1 or 2 walks each game Wheeler could consistently pitch into 7+ innings. The question is how to get him to allow the hitters to make contact and put the ball in play rather than have the onus on him when he’s ahead? Right now I would have deGrom ahead of Wheeler in the rotation starting third with Harvey second and Colon first (if he’s still here). If you were to take the average amount of pitches it takes to walk a batter (6?) multiply by 4 and that represents nearly 25% of his total pitches per game. I would love nothing more than to beat the Nat’s for the division in 2015 (but I’ll take a wildcard). If everything falls into place the Mets have the pitching depth to accomplish what the Royals did in 2014
I don’t think it’s realistic to expect Wheeler to reduce his walks one or two per game.
In the 18-game stretch where he was so good last year and had a 2.78 ERA, he had a 3.44 BB/9. Contrast that with the first nine games of 2014, when he had a 4.71 BB/9.
In his rookie season, Wheeler had a 4.1 BB/9. Last year it was 3.8 BB/9. If he could shave another .3 off his total in 2015 and get it to 3.5, that would be wonderful to see.
I believe Wheelers problems are related to Straying Mechanics. It’s quite visible as he “pops in and out” of an effective delivery for 2-3 pitches at a time…or even when he just loses it for several batters at a time. It may be related to overthrowing or trying to make only swing and miss pitches…I don’t know.
Wheeler’s K/9 was up by over 1.5 last year…it tells you that he is honing both approach and secondary pitches. His selection and execution of “2 strike count”
pitches was much better.
I’m optimistic that he can make a significant jump in effectiveness this year.
As I wrote a little less than a year ago, if Wheeler can command and use his slider more, especially in two strike counts, he should be able to prevent walks by having more guys swing and miss, or beat the ball into the infield. That’s my theory, at least.