He could have started the All-Star Game, but Wheeler has bigger plans

SAN DIEGO -- It would have been a fantastic ad for Zack Wheeler’s NL Cy Young candidacy.

Picture Tuesday night at Truist Park in Atlanta. Wheeler is starting for the National League in the 95th All-Star Game. He is being celebrated as the league’s best pitcher. Even better, he is pitching 10-15 minutes from the Smyrna, Ga., Little League fields where he began his baseball career 30 years ago.

It almost certainly would have happened, if Wheeler had wanted to pitch.

He declined.

“I’d just rather get myself ready to go for the second half,” Wheeler said this weekend in San Diego. “Don’t get me wrong, it would be an honor to throw [or] start.”

He motioned toward the field.

“This is what I’m worried about,” he said, referring to his teammates and a World Series championship.

Maybe Wheeler can win both a championship and a Cy Young this year. He is motivated. He finished second for NL Cy Young in 2021 and ‘24. He felt he should have won in ‘21, throwing an MLB-leading 213 1/3 innings and posting an MLB-leading 7.5 bWAR, bettering winner Corbin Burnes, who threw only 167 innings with a 5.3 WAR. Wheeler finished second to Atlanta’s Chris Sale last year, which more people understood. Sale won the NL’s pitching Triple Crown, leading the league in wins, strikeouts and ERA.

If Wheeler wins one before the end of his career -- he said he will retire after his current contract expires in 2027 -- it will boost his chances for the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., especially with criteria likely changing for starting pitchers, who are handled differently than decades past.

Starting the 2025 All-Star Game could have added to his legacy, too.

Then again, maybe not.

“I don’t think necessarily starting an All-Star Game adds to that,” Wheeler said. “You’re an All-Star either way.”

Phillies manager Rob Thomson said he believes Wheeler sitting out this week might boost his Cy Young chances.

“The fact that he’s got a better chance to stay healthy and stay fresh throughout the rest of the year is going to impact that Cy Young race,” Thomson said.

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Wheeler sat at his locker last week at Oracle Park in San Francisco, speaking fondly of his childhood in the Atlanta suburbs.

He had not yet decided to skip Tuesday’s All-Star Game.

“It would be cool to start in any All-Star Game,” he said. “But it would be cool to pitch at home, too.”

Wheeler lived in nearby Smyrna through the seventh grade. He created his first baseball memories there.

“It was fun,” he said. “It was kind of before travel ball got huge. So I feel like everybody played Little League there. I played with a lot of friends, just making memories over the years when I was young. I think that’s what it’s all about when you’re that age. It’s just going there, playing baseball with your friends and having a good time.”

Wheeler was good, but he wasn’t the best. For a few years as a teenager, he didn’t make the elite travel ball teams. Fortunately, a dad got Wheeler and others together to continue to play and develop.

“I was able to play, and it just helped me to keep moving forward,” Wheeler said.

Wheeler finally made the elite team at 16.

“I started gaining confidence because I was playing against older talent in huge tournaments,” he said. “I was holding my own.”

Wheeler was a star at East Paulding High School, where he went 9-0 with a 0.46 ERA and 149 strikeouts in 76 innings as a senior. The Giants selected him with the sixth overall pick in the 2009 Draft.

“I got there before Zack’s sophomore season,” East Paulding coach Tony Boyd said. “The outgoing coach said, ‘You’re going to have a good team. You’ve got this sophomore, and he’s going to be special.’

“It’s still hard to believe. You turn the TV on, and there’s a guy that played right out here with us. And then you say, yeah, he’s not only on the TV, but he’s actually maybe the best pitcher in Major League Baseball right now. And then, oh yeah, he’s going to maybe start the All-Star Game. And then you mention the Hall of Fame. Yeah, he puts together a few more good years like that, and it’s a real possibility.”

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Wheeler is pitching the best baseball of his life at 35, making everything seem possible. He entered the break with a career-best ERA, ERA+, WHIP, hits per nine innings, strikeouts per nine innings and strikeout-to-walk ratio. He leads the NL in strikeouts, WHIP and strikeouts per nine. He is tied for first in bWAR. He is second in fWAR and innings, although that’s only because Logan Webb has made one more start than him.

Wheeler is besting Paul Skenes and Webb in innings per start, making him the workhorse of the group.

The extra rest this week can’t hurt.

“It would have been fun for sure,” Wheeler said about pitching on Tuesday. “Just taking days off, then blowing it out, taking more days off, then trying to get back into the routine again. It’s not ideal.”