Phillies vs. Braves: Who’s chasing whom? The subplots that make up baseball’s best rivalry.

Zack Wheeler has a unique perspective on baseball’s hottest rivalry.

Wheeler was born in Smyrna, Ga., a few miles from the Braves’ ballpark and the trendy entertainment district that has cropped up around it. He grew up in suburban Atlanta and resides there in the offseason with his wife and three kids. He has friends who regularly attend Braves games.

Yet he’s the best pitcher on the nemesis Phillies.

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“People give me a hard time back home,” Wheeler said recently. “Whenever I pitch, they cheer for me, and as soon as I come out of the game, they start cheering back for the Braves. They want the best for me, but they also want to win. But it’s all in fun.”

OK, so maybe Wheeler — opening-day starter, presumptive Cy Young candidate, and beginning next year, the player with the highest annual salary in Phillies history ($42 million) — is perfectly suited to settle the debate that has been rattling around my brain since, oh, the middle of October.

Are the Phillies chasing the Braves, or vice versa?

On one hand, it’s a preposterous question. The Braves have won the third-most games of any team in baseball since 2018 and six consecutive NL East crowns. They were World Series champions in 2021 and finished 14 games ahead of the Phillies in each of the last two seasons.

But the Phillies kicked the Braves out in the division series in 2022 and again last year, marking the 22nd time that a team has bounced the same opponent in back-to-back postseasons. Only the Yankees, in 1976-78 over the Royals, did it three years in a row. (File that away, because the Braves and Phillies are likely on course for another October collision.)

It’s the best rivalry going, better than Dodgers-Giants, Cardinals-Cubs, even Yankees-Red Sox. Not only are the Braves and Phillies conjoined in simultaneous contention for the first time since their one-off showdown in the 1993 NL Championship Series, but their rosters are loaded, with the fourth- and fifth-highest luxury-tax payrolls and prime-age core players who are locked up through much of the decade.

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So, let’s repeat the question: Who’s chasing whom?

“I feel like it’s even,” Wheeler said. “They got the better of us in season; we got the better of them postseason. It’s a toss-up, man. We know it’s going to be a battle coming into each season.”

Well, that was diplomatic. What say you, J.T. Realmuto?

“I mean, we want to win the division, so in that aspect, we certainly are chasing them,” the Phillies’ star catcher said. “They’ve kicked our butt in the regular season, frankly.

“When it comes to the postseason, I don’t know if they would feel like they’re chasing us, either, because they won a World Series three years ago. But we beat them two years in a row, and I’m sure they feel like there’s a lot of adjustments they need to make.

“It’s a weird little dynamic.”

Or maybe it’s really simple.

”When you look at the division, we‘ve won the division, so in some ways, you’ve got to take it from us,” Braves third baseman Austin Riley said. “I know the postseason hasn’t gone the way we wanted to the last couple years, but from a division standpoint, it’s ours until somebody takes it.”

Said Phillies lefty Matt Strahm: “It’s just two heavyweights standing in the ring putting on a show. I don’t see it as chasing one another. You put us on paper next to each other, it’s damn near equal.”

Got it. Neither side cares to offer even a whiff of bulletin-board material. Not after last October, when the Phillies latched on to reports of Braves shortstop Orlando Arcia’s clubhouse revelry — “Attaboy, Harper!” he shrieked after Bryce Harper got doubled off first base to end Game 2. Harper homered twice in Game 3 and stared a hole through Arcia as he rounded the bases.

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But there does appear to be more respect than animosity between the teams. This isn’t Yankees-Red Sox, circa 2003-04. Pedro Martinez isn’t charging out of the dugout to throw Don Zimmer to the ground, an intense level of dislike that, as Strahm put it, “I don’t think we’ll ever see again in baseball.”

That doesn’t mean there aren’t delicious subplots that will shape the latest chapter of Phillies-Braves, which, fittingly, kicked off the season this weekend at Citizens Bank Park. Heck, maybe they will even help finally determine which of the NL East foes has the upper hand.

Let’s dig in:

Two years in a row, the best-of-five division series was tied heading to Philadelphia for Game 3. And two years in a row, Nola spun a gem to help swing the momentum for the Phillies.

Unable to beat Nola, the Braves tried getting him to join them.

It would have tilted the rivalry — in a southerly direction.

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When Nola hit the free-agent market in November, the Braves were among the teams that made an offer out of the chute, according to multiple sources. It also probably wouldn’t have been Atlanta’s final offer, except that Nola strongly preferred to stay with the Phillies.

Two weeks later, the Phillies’ best homegrown pitcher since Cole Hamels was sitting in a news conference after finalizing a seven-year, $172 million contract.

“It was most important that we kept him ourselves, but I sure wouldn’t have wanted him to go to Atlanta, either,” said president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski. “I would not look forward to facing a pitcher of his ilk against us by any means.”

Nola’s decision, 17 days into free agency, set in motion vasty different offseasons for the NL powers.

Despite their dark-horse push for Japanese ace Yoshinobu Yamamoto, the Phillies were mostly content to run back a roster led by Wheeler and Nola. In spring training, they signed Wheeler to a three-year, $126 million extension, keeping the top of the rotation intact through at least 2027.

The Braves took other avenues to improve their starting pitching, notably trading for Chris Sale and signing Reynaldo López. Sale is scheduled to face the Phillies on Sunday, one day after Nola squares off with the Braves.

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Get your scorecards ready.

One thing the Braves have been unable to do: work out an extension with lefty Max Fried, which means it will probably be their turn after the season to keep their homegrown ace from fleeing.

Say what you will about the chasm in the standings between the Braves and Phillies in the last two seasons. The head-to-head matchups prove the teams are much closer.

“It feels like it’s always that one swing of the bat that swings the whole game,” Phillies second baseman Bryson Stott said. “Riley hits the home run, or [Braves center fielder Michael] Harris Spidermans the wall and catches the ball, or [in] 2022, Rhys [Hoskins] hits the [bat-spike] home run. We’ve just kind of had the one swing or the one pitch in the playoffs.”

Usually, it’s Harper who does the swinging.

In 2022, Harper went 8-for-16 with two homers and a 1.592 OPS in the division series. He somehow topped it last year: 6-for-13, three homers, 1.765 OPS.

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The Braves didn’t lack lefties to throw at him, either. But they’ve added Sale and Aaron Bummer to Fried and A.J. Minter in the rotation and the bullpen, respectively. Tyler Matzek is back, too, after missing the 2022 postseason and all of last year because of Tommy John elbow surgery.

Maybe the Braves are better equipped to neutralize Harper. But the Phillies did a solid job on Ronald Acuña Jr. in each of the last two postseasons. The reigning NL MVP went 2-for-14 with a double in last year’s division series after going 5-for-15 with a double in 2022.

How much different would it have been, though, if Phillies center fielder Johan Rojas hadn’t run down Acuña’s drive to left-center field with the bases loaded in the seventh inning of Game 4?

Stott’s point exactly.

Trea Turner, Harper, Nola, Wheeler, and Nick Castellanos are all signed through at least 2026. That’s true of Riley, Harris, Matt Olson, Spencer Strider, Sean Murphy, and Acuña on the Braves’ side.

If they weren’t already well-acquainted, they will be.

“They know we’re not scared of them,” Stott said, “and they’re not scared of us.”

Said Fried: “There are no secrets. They know what I have. I know what they have. There’s no secrets. And they’re great hitters, and they play good baseball, especially when it matters most.”

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Especially then. But the Braves still believe the regular season still matters, too, even though being the best team in the division from April to September is no longer the only path to October. As Riley put it: “The No. 1 goal is to win a World Series. I think the hardest thing to do is win a division because it’s such a marathon.”

So, let’s ask it again: Who’s doing the chasing?

“I think we’re looking to ideally do what they’re doing, winning the division every year, which would be very difficult because they have a solid organization and players that are tied up for years at some younger ages,” Dombrowski said. “But I’d like to do that and also win world championships.”

In that case, as another season begins, the road still runs through Atlanta.

Join us live from Citizens Bank Park on Friday at 1:30 p.m. for an exclusive Phillies preview on Gameday Central. Inquirer sports reporters Alex Coffey and Scott Lauber will dive deep into the 2024 season with a detailed look at the Phillies’ roster, key players, and what fans can expect this season.