Where does Zack Wheeler rank among the best free-agent signings in Phillies history?

Wheeler has been money well spent for the Phillies over the past four years. Here’s our take on who else belongs with him among the team's best signings.

From left: Pete Rose, Zack Wheeler and Jim Thome.Read moreAP, Heather Khalifa / Staff Photographer, AP

by Scott Lauber

Updated March 15, 2024, 1:19 p.m. ET

Published March 15, 2024, 1:09 p.m. ET

It’s John Middleton’s money, so when a player makes the dollars go as far as Zack Wheeler did over these last four years, the Phillies’ owner is entitled to gloat a little.

Or a lot.

There was Middleton, then, standing in the rear of a cafeteria after the March 4 news conference to announce Wheeler’s three-year, $126 million extension, preening like a peacock over the five-year, $118 million deal (steal?) that preceded it.

“I don’t think there’s been a better pitching contract in baseball in a long, long time,” Middleton said that day in Clearwater, Fla. “[Max] Scherzer’s seven-year deal with Washington is probably the last obvious one to me that you could legitimately point to and say, ‘There’s a guy who performed through the life of that contract.’ ”

It’s tough to top Scherzer, who won back-to-back Cy Young awards and finished in the top five in the voting in six of his seven seasons with the Nationals. He signed for $210 million, and based on FanGraphs’ WAR-to-dollars formula, was valued at more than $275 million.

“Spectacular contract,” Middleton said. “And he’s a spectacular pitcher.”

But Wheeler is in the neighborhood. He has achieved the rare trifecta of durability (90 starts in the last three seasons), consistency (3.06 regular-season ERA), and October dominance (2.48 ERA in 10 playoff starts). He also leads all pitchers with 19.2 wins above replacement, a $154.1 million value according to FanGraphs. (The Phillies have paid him $79 million so far, including a prorated salary from the short 2020 season.)

“I mean, can you think of a better contract since Scherzer’s?” Middleton asked, non-rhetorically.

Maybe Gerrit Cole’s deal with the Yankees?

“But he’s still got a ways to fulfill it,” Middleton said, before the Yankees ace and reigning AL Cy Young winner injured his right elbow to begin Year 5 of a nine-year, $324 million contract. “If Cole can [continue to] do what he does, I think you can say that’s at least as good [as Wheeler], if not better.

“You know what Scherzer did for Washington. You can say there’s a body of work with a contract around it, and you can assess that.”

Fair enough. Regardless, the whole conversation with Middleton got us to thinking: Where does Wheeler’s initial contract rank with other free-agent signings in Phillies history?

A half-century of free agency in baseball leaves hundreds of players to consider, even if the Phillies were never the most active team in pursuing big-ticket talent until the last five years. A few guidelines, then, for this exercise:

Re-signed free agents (such as Jimmy Rollins in 2011 or J.T. Realmuto in 2021) don’t count. The idea is to find players who, like Wheeler, hadn’t experienced playing in Philadelphia prior to signing with the Phillies.
Like Cole in the pitcher-contract discussion, players who aren’t at least halfway through their contract aren’t eligible, which takes Bryce Harper out of the mix. Through five seasons, Harper has outproduced his club-record 13-year, $330 million deal. In time, he should wind up on this list, maybe even at the top. But he has eight years (at least) left to go.

That said, here’s our take on the competition for Wheeler as the best free-agent signings in Phillies history. As always, feel free to disagree.

Pete Rose

Rose was 37 and past his peak in December 1978 when he accepted the Phillies’ four-year, $3.2 million offer.

But as his teammates will attest, the real payoff was his impact.

“We needed someone coming in from the outside to tell us, ‘You guys are pretty good, man. I don’t know why you keep getting beat in the playoffs,’ ” Larry Bowa said in 2019. “I’m not saying we might not have won it without Pete, but he added a lot to us taking that next step.”

As a former MVP and two-time World Series champion with the Reds, Rose added star power to a Phillies team that won 101, 101, and 90 games from 1976 to 1978 but lost in the NLCS each year. He also brought cockiness and a swagger that had been lacking.

In five seasons with the Phillies, Rose’s numbers — .291/.365/.361 — didn’t leap off the scorecard. But he authored indelible moments, from bulldozing Astros catcher Bruce Bochy in the 1980 NLCS to catching the ricochet of a foul ball for the penultimate out of the World Series.

And Rose’s words before Bowa led off the eighth inning of Game 5 of the 1980 NLCS against Nolan Ryan — “If you get on, we’re going to win” — rank with Ryan Howard’s “get me to the plate, boys” and Harper’s “let’s give ‘em something to remember” as famous Phillies prophecies.

Jim Thome

Thome played only about 15% of his Hall of Fame career in Philadelphia and hit less than 20% of his 612 home runs for the Phillies.

But like Rose, his value to the franchise transcended numbers.

The Phillies had one winning season in a span of nine years when Thome hit the market with the force of a moonshot homer in the fall of 2002. They were hardly a destination for free agents. If anything, star players (Curt Schilling and Scott Rolen) forced their way out of town.

So, when Thome chose the Phillies’ six-year, $85 million offer, it “gave us legitimacy again,” as longtime assistant general manager Mike Arbuckle said.

Thome led the majors with 47 homers in 2003, then followed with 42 in 2004. He also became the Phillies’ centerpiece as they closed Veterans Stadium and opened Citizens Bank Park.

It scarcely mattered, then, to his organizational legacy that he got traded to the White Sox with two years left on his contract to clear first base for Howard. Thome put the Phillies back in the national spotlight after a dark decade.

Jayson Werth

Dollars to dingers, Werth is the best free-agent value in Phillies history.

After three injury-marred seasons, including a complete washout in 2006 because of multiple wrist surgeries, Werth wasn’t tendered a contract by the Dodgers. The Phillies took an $850,000 flier and gave him occasional starts against lefties in 2007. He batted .298, slugged .459, and earned a bigger role.

By 2008, he went 8-for-18 in the World Series with a homer in Game 4.

A year later, the Phillies signed Werth to a two-year, $10 million contract extension. In four seasons, he batted .282/.380/.506 with 95 homers, set a franchise record with 11 postseason homers, and rocked the Geico Caveman look when Brandon Marsh was still in sixth grade.

And the Phillies paid him a total of $12.55 million.

Werth’s big payday — seven years, $126 million — came from the rival Nationals after the 2010 season. It didn’t go nearly as well. He batted .263/.355/.433 with 109 homers and retired two years before Washington won the World Series.

Jonathan Papelbon

When the Phillies chucked $50 million at Papelbon after the 2011 season, then-general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. theorized that good teams spare no expense to sidestep the psychological trauma of blowing late leads.

“It’s essential that we win the games we’re supposed to win,” Amaro said at the time, “because of the commitment we’ve made to our starting pitching and just our pitching in general.”

The Phillies picked the right closer, but at the wrong time.

Papelbon mostly earned his money, posting a 2.31 ERA and converting 89% of his save opportunities in 3½ seasons. He had his blowups, most notably grabbing his crotch while being booed off the mound late in the 2014 season. But he also set a franchise record with 123 saves.

The bigger problem was that Papelbon joined the Phillies as their window to contend was closing. They went 81-81 in 2012, and it only got worse before they traded him at the deadline in 2015.

“I signed up on a team that won 102 games and was expecting certain things,” Papelbon said in 2015. “Now it didn’t happen, and I’ve tried to ride that ship as much as I can.”

Cliff Lee

OK, so we said we aren’t including re-signed free agents. But Lee gets an asterisk because the Phillies brought back the 2009 World Series rent-an-ace in free agency 364 days after trading him to Seattle for prospects, Amaro’s most regrettable move.

And because Lee is the closest comp to Wheeler.

The Phillies signed Lee to a five-year, $120 million contract, and he went 41-30 with a 2.89 ERA and 739 strikeouts in 747⅔ innings before tearing the flexor tendon near his left elbow, an injury that ended his career. He made only one postseason start in his second stint with the Phillies.

But Lee still provided surplus value on his big contract, with FanGraphs estimating his value at $142.5 million over the life of the deal. And like Wheeler, there were few pitchers you’d rather have on the mound in a Game 7 than Lee.