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Wheeler's Improvements in 2014 Point to Promise in 2015
Pitching depth is always a luxury for fantasy owners who have it. The problem is, sometimes it's pretty hard to come by -- especially in the draft. By the time your league draft has made its way into the late rounds, most of the remaining pitchers are questionable at best. Due to this unpredictability, many fantasy owners carry a patchwork rotation through the first part of the season before grabbing a promising arm off the free agent list later on. In fact, that's exactly what I did last year with Zack Wheeler. But this season, Wheeler may be one guy you can count on in the later rounds of your draft to bolster your fantasy rotation.
2014 was Zack Wheeler's second MLB season with the New York Mets after spending parts of the previous four seasons coming up with both the Giants and Mets farm systems. Wheeler's rookie campaign was quietly solid: 100 IP, 3.42 ERA, 1.36 WHIP, and 7.6 K/9. Still, there was definitely some room for improvement. Wheeler's FIP was a pretty mediocre 4.17, and he walked just over 4 batters per nine innings. On top of that, when opposing batters put the bat on the ball, they did it with authority, posting a 23.5 LD%. For a 23 year old rookie, those numbers aren't all that shocking. The question for the Mets going into the 2014 season was whether or not Wheeler would be able to throw more strikes and start limiting solid contact in the process.
The answer to that question was a resounding "yes." In his second season, Wheeler improved in just about every area, partially due to increased command and pitch variety. Wheeler threw 71.1% fastballs in 2013, but decreased that number to 62.1% in 2014 while relying more heavily on his curveball (15.8%) and changeup (7.2%). As a result, we saw his swinging strike percentage increase from 8.8% in 2013 to 9.8% in 2014. The numbers Wheeler posted when opposing batters managed to put the bat on the ball were better, too. Opposing hitters managed line drives just 18.8% of the time and hit the ball on the ground at a 54% rate.
For fantasy owners, this is great news. The 2014 version of Zack Wheeler turned in a 3.54 ERA, 1.327 WHIP, 9.1 K/9 and 3.8 BB/9 over 185 IP while pitching to an 11-11 record. At times throughout the season, we also saw glimpses of Wheeler's tremendous potential going forward. In one stretch from June 30 through September 7, Wheeler allowed 3 or fewer earned runs in each of the 13 games he started. He did so by inducing 10 or more ground balls in 8 of those 13 starts and pitching 6 or more innings all but twice.
In Summary
Zack Wheeler is a young arm with tons of potential upside, especially if the improvements we saw in 2014 are the beginning of a trend. Wheeler certainly has the ability to induce both ground balls and strikeouts at a pretty impressive clip, which is a recipe for success at the MLB level and for fantasy owners. He could be just the breakout candidate you're looking for in the upcoming 2015 fantasy baseball season.
