Attention Mets Fans, Zack Wheeler Is Still Second In Command

NY Daily News

      I may be wrong here, but I get the feeling that all of us Mets fans have a split opinion on Zack Wheeler. I've seen plenty on Facebook forums and other groups state that he is destined to be a second fiddle. Basically, those fans are saying that Wheeler will not only be behind Harvey in the rotation, but also behind Degrom, Syndergaard and perhaps even Steven Matz too. While this happening is a possibility, I feel like those fans are forgetting that Wheeler has just as much, if not more talent than the last two pitchers I mentioned. Plus, we all know that Zack Wheeler has been getting better as time wears on. What I want to talk about here is simply how Zack Wheeler has been taking steps to improve, and it has been under our noses. 
     First off, let's address the elephant in the room. We know that Wheeler had trouble walking batters. Yes, it is encouraging that he cut down on his walk rate a tad last season, but it still wasn't promising, as he has posted consecutive seasons of a walk rate higher than 10%. In fact, since his debut in mid-2013, Wheeler has had the sixth worst walk rate in the Majors. His rate of balls thrown in the strike zone wasn't too awesome either, as his 43.3% tied him for 27th worst in the bigs. However, he did improve his first pitch strike%, and through my research, I have found that a high percentage of first pitch strikes has a very strong correlation with walk rate. It also makes sense even without numbers simply because if you're on the mound, and proceed to throw a first pitch strike, it's a lot shorter of a hill to climb in terms of working the count. Plus, it gives the pitcher a boost of confidence starting off ahead in the count, and you know how that saying goes about baseball being a mental game.
     One thing that showed tremendous improvement was his ability to generate groundballs, and as you probably know by now, I love groundball pitchers because that shows they are able to suppress solid contact. Anyway, Wheeler's groundball rate sat at 54%, which represented a near 10% improvement. In fact, Wheeler's frequency of getting groundballs placed him 9th among Major League pitchers last season. In case you were wondering, Wheeler's groundball rate going into a rocket-ship last year was not a fluke. The following is his pitch usage up until the 2014 season.

     Now, here is his pitch usage from the 2014 season.

     Both of these pictures kind of kill two birds with one stone for me, as they portray both why Zack Wheeler was able to have a much improved grounder percentage, as well as why he has permitted as many walks as he did. As you can see, Wheeler was able to coax significantly more grounders was because he located the baseball low in the strike zone more. As much as this proved to be a great thing, it also could be a reason why Wheeler fell behind in the count more often than not. This was because despite him not missing up in the zone (and out of the zone) far less often, he still showed a tendency to either miss in and around the belt level to right handers, or he would miss down in the zone (perhaps part of what seemed to be the adjustment he made of throwing low in the zone more often). 

     I think that as the 2015 season wears on, Zack could very well throw pitches that are too low far less often due to him likely working on that approach over the offseason and throughout the Spring. 

     Now I think that Wheeler's potential taking on a grounder oriented approach stems from how often he fell behind in counts. Considering the average percentage of falling behind in the count has hovered around 17% the past 2 seasons, Wheeler's has been around 19-20%. Over the course of 30-32 games pitched, that adds up, and as a result, could lead to the pitcher getting the hook much earlier than most would like. However, it hasn't affected his innings total too much, as he still managed to pitch 185 innings last year. Still though, if he manages to lower his pitch counts and get ahead in the count more often, one only knows how many more innings he can eat.  

     I didn't mention much of his strikeout rate or his electric stuff because in all honesty, he's had that since before he even turned pro. Combine his swing and miss arsenal with more of a game plan on the mound, and Wheeler could not only continue to get better, but also take that next step toward being Matt Harvey's right hand man. Also, Wheeler's only 24, so it's pretty clear that his best years are still ahead of him.