Phillies: Choosing Zack Wheeler over MadBum was an all-time great move

Coming off a dominant 2021 debut against the Atlanta Braves, the praises for Philadelphia Phillies RHP Zack Wheeler are raining down left and right. The former New York Met was absolutely dominant on Saturday, pitching seven scoreless innings while recording ten strikeouts and allowing just one hit.

The praise for Wheeler is much-deserved, and it shouldn’t be limited to just this one start against Atlanta. Since signing his five-year/$118 million contract with the Phils, he’s been one of the better pitchers in all of baseball.

Across his 12 starts as a member of the Phillies pitching staff, Wheeler is 5-2 with a 2.65 ERA and a 1.077 WHIP. One could very easily make the argument that he’s been the Phils best overall pitcher since joining the team in 2020, and he’s still just 30 years old.

As great as Wheeler has been since making the switch from “The Big Apple” to “The City of Brotherly Love”, it wasn’t always a guarantee that he would end up pitching games in red and white pinstripes. In fact, early on in the 2020 offseason, it was reported that the Phillies actually had their eyes set on a different free agent pitcher.

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According to Bleacher Report’s Adam Wells, the Phillies had expressed significant interest in longtime San Francisco Giant Madison Bumgarner during the early stages of free agency:

"The Philadelphia Phillies’ need for help in the starting rotation has put them in the market for free agent Madison Bumgarner.Per MLB Network’s Jon Paul Morosi, the Phillies are “actively interested” in the four-time All-Star:Morosi later confirmed the Phillies and Bumgarner’s representatives have been in contact.Bumgarner will come with a cheaper price tag than Cole. The southpaw tied his career high with 34 starts last season for the San Francisco Giants. He posted a 3.90 ERA with 203 strikeouts in 207.2 innings."

The Phillies reported interest in Bumgarner (MadBum) shouldn’t come as all that surprising, as he was exactly the type of player that the previous regime tended to prioritize. Similar to Jake Arrieta (who Matt Klentak paid $75 million to), Bumgarner was a proven veteran with a ton of postseason experience.

Klentak even showed off this level of obsession with older vets at last year’s trade deadline, when he shipped out young prospects for the likes of Brandon Workman, Heath Hembree, and David Phelps – all players who are no longer apart of the Phillies’ since-improved bullpen.

The Phillies made the right call signing Zack Wheeler over Madison Bumgarner.

While Bumgarner undoubtedly had the “bigger name” compared to the likes of Zack Wheeler, the level of play between the two since the 2020 offseason hasn’t even been comparable. MadBum recorded a 6.48 ERA across nine starts for his new team – the Arizona Diamondbacks – in 2020, and gave up six runs in just four innings of work on Opening Day earlier this week.

Bumgarner’s fastball velocity also appears to be trending in the wrong direction, as it sat way down at 88.6 MPH during his first season with the DBacks, compared to Wheeler’s 97+ MPH average.

While Bumgarner ultimately only ended up signing for $85 million across five years compared to Wheeler’s $118 million, I think it’s pretty safe to say that the Phillies chose the right free agent pitcher last offseason. Hard to imagine where the team would be without the dominant right-hander at the moment.