Reviews, Previews, and Ranks: Philadelphia Phillies
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Pitchers
Aaron Nola
Nola had a really good year and turned into a nice draft pick. He was drafted in the third round a lot of times, I saw, and he turned into a top five season in most league types.
32 GS, 3.25 ERA, 0.96 WHIP, 29.1% K%, 3.6% BB%, 33.6% CSW%, 13.8% SwStr%
It’s just really good stuff there. He gave up a moderate number of homers again, but that is just who the guy is. He throws a ton of strikes and sometimes that hurts him, but most of the time it turns into really good things for fantasy purposes.
Good marks on everything, and a really deep arsenal. The four-seamer led to some homers, which again, it’s just something we accept. The curveball is great, and he has the sinker and cutter there if he ever needs them. He’s great, a top seven or so SP for next year once again - no need to spend a ton of time on him.
Comps/RankArounds: Dylan Cease, Shane McClanahan
Zack Wheeler
It turned out to be a pretty good season for Wheeler who dealt with some injuries but persisted.
26 GS, 153 IP, 2.82 ERA, 1.04 WHIP, 26.9% K%, 5.6% BB%, 28.9% CSW%, 12.7% SwStr%
He missed about a half dozen starts there, and got slightly worse from 2021 overall. Here’s what he did in that massive breakout year:
32 GS, 213.1 IP, 2.78 ERA, 1.01 WHIP, 29.1% K%, 5.4% BB%, 29.5% CSW%, 13.9% SwStr%
The arsenal stayed the same and it’s still a good one:
He has one of the best four-seamers in the game and you can see that hitters really struggled to make solid contact with anything he threw outside of that 2% changeup.
Lots of downward movement on the slider, and significant sinker usage - that justifies the 46% GB% - in fact, I think it could go even higher next year.
He’s good, I don’t know what else to say!
The reason to not be super excited about him is the age (32) and the injuries we saw last year, but prior to 2022 he had put together four straight fully healthy seasons, so we shouldn’t be too tough on him because of the few missed starts in 2022. I’ll certainly have the top guys significantly ahead of him just because of the lesser SwStr% and K% we saw last year.
Comps/RankArounds: Shohei Ohtani, Zac Gallen
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