Philadelphia Phillies head coach has terminated a contract of $90 million as he bitterly explained ………
Philadelphia has made no secret of wanting to keep Wheeler around for more than just the 2024 campaign. In December, Todd Zolecki of MLB.com reported that the Phillies prioritized an extension. Dave Dombrowski, the president of baseball operations, confirmed that last week on record.
Wheeler, who will turn 34 in May, is a free agent for the next five seasons. During the 2019–20 offseason, the club invested $118 million, making it one of their biggest free-agent additions in recent memory. Over his first four seasons in Philadelphia, Wheeler has a 3.06 ERA. In three of them, he has been listed on the Cy Young vote; in 2021, he came in second place. Since then, only teammate Aaron Nola, Gerrit Cole, and Sandy Alcántara have thrown more innings.
The levels of dominance displayed by deGrom and Scherzer at their peak have not been equaled by Wheeler. Though he is a few years younger than Scherzer was when he signed with New York, he has a considerably better durability record than deGrom. The free market bidding helped those pitchers. Wheeler won’t have that in talks with Philadelphia about an extension, but it would probably take something close to free-agent rates for him to sign before the deadline.
For Wheeler, who is three years younger than the San Diego righty was at the time, that isn’t a very good point of reference. His age-35 campaign would see an extension go into effect. Max Scherzer and former colleague Jacob deGrom are two pitchers who have signed nine-figure free-agent contracts at that age, as can be seen on MLBTR’s Contract Tracker. Last winter, at age 35, deGrom signed a five-year, $185 million guarantee with the Rangers. In November 2021, Scherzer signed a three-year, $130 million contract with the Mets that would cover his age 37–39 seasons. At the time, the $43.33M average annual value was a record; however, it is currently tied for second after being surpassed by Shohei Ohtani and matched by Justin Verlander.
