PHILADELPHIA — In a near-silent, near-empty room, Zack Wheeler sauntered over to a tablet connected to the clubhouse speakers and tapped on Young Thug’s landmark album “So Much Fun.”
Sporting a dark gray tee emblazoned with the logo of a British animated children’s show called “Number Blocks,” the Philadelphia Phillies’ pitcher scooped up an undersized basketball with his oversized hands and leisurely took aim at the locker room’s 7-foot hoop.
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It looked like a stay-at-home dad biding his time until the kids got home from school, not one of the best pitchers on Earth preparing for his next start. Nothing about Wheeler’s demeanor suggested that, in a few hours, he would attempt to stymie the two-time defending champion Los Angeles Dodgers in front of 40,000.
But that’s Wheeler: cool, calm, collected, in total control and fully aware of it. He is a throwback, a bulldog, unafraid to speak his mind and eager to take the ball. And now, at age 36, after a half-decade as one of the game’s best pitchers, Wheeler is enjoying the best season of his career.
That Wheeler is shining is simultaneously against all odds and entirely predictable. This outwardly gruff rail of a man has been the sport’s most valuable pitcher in the post-pandemic era. He is one of just four hurlers who have thrown at least 1,000 innings over that span, making his 2.83 ERA all the more impressive. And Wheeler has been even better in October, sporting a 2.18 ERA across 70 1/3 postseason innings. Since joining the Phillies in 2021, he has been the textbook definition of an ace.
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But last summer, his career appeared to be in jeopardy.
After experiencing arm fatigue in August, the right-hander underwent testing that revealed a potentially life-threatening blood clot near his right shoulder. He promptly had thoracic outlet decompression surgery, ending his 2025 season and casting doubt over his professional future.
“Right now, my thoughts are just about him,” then-Phillies skipper Rob Thomson told reporters at the time. “This isn’t like a hamstring or a calf. This is real. This is life. So my thoughts are constantly on him and his family.”
Wheeler’s surgery proved to be a success; removing the top rib from his right side released pressure on the affected area. Because the post-operation procedure involved blood thinners that make athletic activity dangerous, Wheeler didn’t commence a throwing program until the first week of December. But by February, he was more or less back on track.
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“I saw his second bullpen in spring training, and he was like 90, 91 [mph], easy, just dotting,” Aaron Nola, Wheeler’s longtime rotation-mate and pal, remembered. “I was like, ‘Oh, he’s back. He’s gonna have a normal year.’ But he’s having an even better year.”
At this point, Nola couldn’t help but chuckle and shake his head.
“He’s having, like, his best year,” the 12-year Philly said through awed laughter.
Nola’s right. Wheeler has a career-best 2.16 ERA across 100 frames, despite not having made his season debut until April 25. Although he hasn’t yet thrown enough innings to qualify for the ERA title, Wheeler ranks at or near the top in every meaningful statistical category. Among NL hurlers with triple-digit innings, he is third in ERA, third in WHIP and second in strikeout-to-walk rate. After beginning the season as a relative afterthought, there’s a legitimate chance that Wheeler finishes the campaign in the NL Cy Young conversation.
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Milwaukee Brewers string bean Jacob Misiorowski, he of the 105 mph heater and 39.4% strikeout rate, is the current front-runner. But the playoff-bound Brewers are expected to limit their phenom’s innings in order to ensure he’s at full capacity for October. Misiorowski missed his last start before the All-Star Game, skipped the game itself and went just four innings in his most recent outing. Wheeler is only 15 innings behind “The Miz” right now. A few skipped starts or truncated outings from the Brewers’ flamethrower (and, admittedly, an ERA spike) could see the two feature similar résumés by voting season.
Wheeler’s steepest competition might actually be in his own clubhouse. Phillies southpaw Cristopher Sánchez started last week’s All-Star Game, propelled by a remarkable 50-inning scoreless streak earlier this year. Sánchez gobbles innings like cocktail party hors d’oeuvres and has a 2.71 ERA to boot. Cincinnati’s Chase Burns, Atlanta’s Chris Sale, Los Angeles’ Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Pittsburgh’s Paul Skenes will also have compelling cases in a ridiculously crowded NL field.
But no award or accolade can define or dictate Wheeler’s season. He has already made that clear by declining an invitation to the All-Star Game after being left off the initial roster. That saga — both Wheeler being overlooked and his stagy response — captured the hurler in a nutshell: principled and peevish. He moves through his baseball life simultaneously irritable and unbothered, perturbed and unflappable. Wheeler cares about the little things and is unafraid to express his displeasure when something is amiss.
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Yet he rarely, if ever, lets those minor inconveniences — a rain delay, a bad mound, a missed call, a long travel day — impact his performance. That’s part of why Wheeler, on his start days, is a noticeably mellow character. Other elite hurlers are famously unapproachable in the hours leading up to first pitch; Clayton Kershaw’s idiosyncrasies were notorious. Wheeler is a different story. He’ll talk to teammates, coaches, even reporters in the same way he would on any other day. Sometimes he’ll emerge from the clubhouse during batting practice still wearing his street clothes and just hang out on the dugout steps.
That approach stems from the same unrelenting self-confidence that helped push Wheeler from the operating table to the top of the pitching leaderboards in less than nine months. In his mind, it’s all not that big of a deal, whether it’s collecting outs, punching out Ohtani or having a rib removed.
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During his most recent start Tuesday against the Dodgers, Wheeler hit exactly 100 innings on the season. After that outing, I inquired whether the milestone carried extra meaning, given what he battled through over the past year.
“Um, no,” he replied. “I’ve said it before: I always saw myself coming back to who I was or even better. …
“I’m thankful — don’t get me wrong — but yeah, that’s the mindset.”
