MLBTR: Zack Wheeler Earns MLB's Highest AAV

MLBTRivia: Zack Wheeler’s three-year extension with the Phillies has the highest average annual value of any extension in MLB history. Who held that record prior to Monday?

Phillies Extend Zack Wheeler through 2027

The Phillies signed right-hander Zack Wheeler to a three-year, $126-million extension on Monday. Wheeler, who has emerged as a perennial Cy Young candidate since singing a five-year, $118-million deal with the Phillies in December 2019, is entering the final season of that initial contract. This new deal will kick in next year and take Wheeler through his age-37 season in 2027.

The contract, which contains no opt-outs or options, has an average annual value of $42 million, is the fourth-highest in major-league history (behind Shohei Ohtani’s new deal and the pacts Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander signed with the Mets).

That is also the highest AAV ever on an extension (the three others mentioned above all benefitted from the added leverage of an active free agency). Wheeler will achieve 10-and-5 status by the end of the coming season, giving him veto power over trades during the remainder of his time with the Phillies.

Drafted sixth-overall by the Giants in 2009, Wheeler took a circuitous journey to this point. San Francisco traded him straight-up for Mets outfielder Carlos Beltrán at the 2011 deadline, and while Wheeler climbed toward the top of most prospect lists in the following seasons, injuries and wildness disrupted his arrival in the Mets’ rotation in the middle of the last decade. It wasn’t until his age-28 and -29 seasons that Wheeler managed to put together consecutive qualifying seasons, and his initial Phillies contract, which followed those two campaigns, seemed aggressive at the time. In reality, it has been a bargain.

Wheeler was very good in 11 starts in his first season in Philadelphia, the abbreviated 2020 campaign. He was significantly better over a major-league best 213 1/3 innings the next year, making the All-Star team, leading the National League in strikeouts (247), and finishing a very close second in the NL Cy Young voting (he tied winner Corbin Burnes with 12 first-place votes). He was nearly as good in 2022 despite missing a month with tendonitis in his right forearm, and while his ERA inflated a bit in 2023, he still managed a 119 ERA+ and a 5.44 strikeout-to-walk ratio across 192 innings.

Altogether, Wheeler has posted a 3.06 ERA (137 ERA+), 1.06 WHIP, 5.00 K/BB, and 2.90 FIP in 101 starts for the Phils, and that doesn’t include his 2.42 ERA in 10 starts and one Game 7 relief appearance in the postseason over the last two years. Wheeler was particularly good this past October, turning in four quality starts with a 1.95 ERA and 35 strikeouts against just three walks in 27 2/3 innings (1 2/3 of those in relief).

The Phillies’ decision to extend Wheeler is certainly understandable given the combination of his late blooming and recent excellence. Indeed, part of the Phillies’ calculus regarding Wheeler may also be the notion that all of those injuries in his youth protected his arm from overuse in those seasons. Wheeler exceeded 170 innings pitched just once prior to his age-28 season and 150 innings just twice. Meanwhile, after winning the pennant in 2022 and getting within one game of another last year, Philadelphia faced the possibility of losing their two aces, Wheeler and Aaron Nola, to free agency on either side of the coming season. Instead, they have re-signed Nola through 2030 and extended Wheeler through 2027. At the very least, that will make their fans happy and sustain their chances of a deep postseason run in the coming season.

Josh Donaldson Retires

Former All-Star third baseman and American League MVP Josh Donaldson announced his retirement on Monday on The Mayor’s Office with Sean Casey. The 38-year-old Donaldson had expressed an interest in playing one more season back in November, but the slow market and a lack of interest from teams appears to have contributed to his decision to hang ’em up.

Donaldson took an unusual route to late-blooming stardom in the major-leagues. Drafted out of Auburn University by the Cubs in 2007 with the compensation pick they received (48th overall) when speedster Juan Pierre signed with the Dodgers, Donaldson was a third baseman in college but converted to catching in the minor leagues.

Part of the five-player trade that brought fragile right-hander Rich Harden to the Cubs from the A’s in July 2008, Donaldson was still a catcher when he first reached the majors with the A’s in 2010, though by then he was making occasional appearances at the infield corners and in the outfield.

After appearing in 14 games for Oakland that year, Donaldson spent all of 2011 back in Triple-A at the age of 25 and looked like he might top out as a Quad-A player, lacking an obvious position or particularly impressive numbers in Triple-A.

He opened 2012 back in the majors and bounced back and forth between the A’s and Triple-A Sacramento, as you would expect a 26-year-old Quad-A player to do. However, that August, A’s third baseman Brandon Inge dislocated his shoulder, and the A’s and manager Bob Melvin recalled Donaldson and installed him at third base. Donaldson rewarded that faith by hitting .290/.356/.489 over his final 194 plate appearances with superlative play in the field, and the A’s, in part powered by Donaldson, overtook the Rangers to win the division and snap a five-year playoff drought.

Donaldson was even better in 2013, hitting .301/.384/.499 and finishing fourth in the American League MVP voting. That might have looked like an age-27-season fluke at first, but Donaldson maintained most of that value at the plate in 2014, was even better in the field, made his first All-Star team, and finished eighth in the MVP voting.

Attempting to sell high on a player entering his arbitration years, the A’s flipped Donaldson to the Blue Jays that November for righty Kendal Graveman and three others who proved to be busts. Donaldson was even better in Toronto. In his first two years with the Jays, he hit .291/.387/.559 (152 OPS+) with 78 home runs and 182 walks, making the All-Star team and winning the Silver Slugger both years, finishing fourth in the MVP voting in his second season with the team, and winning it in his first. Helped the Blue Jays snap a 20-year playoff drought in 2015 and hitting .325/.402/.597 in 20 playoff games across those two seasons.

Donaldson, at the age of 31, was every bit as good on a per-game basis in 2017, but he lost six weeks of that season to a right calf strain, and injuries, particularly calf injuries, would prove to be part of his undoing going forward. In 2018, after recovering from some early shoulder inflammation, he suffered a strain of his left calf that cost him three and a half months of his walk year. The Jays traded him to Cleveland while he was on the injured list, and he signed a one-year pillow contract with Atlanta that offseason to attempt to reset his value.

Donaldson’s bet on himself paid off. He stayed healthy and raked with Atlanta, picking up some more MVP votes and landing a four-year, $92-million deal with the Twins for his age-34 to -37 seasons. In the first year of that deal, Donaldson raked when healthy but missed roughly half of that abbreviated 2020 season due to another right calf strain.

He largely rebounded in 2021, despite some nagging hamstring injuries, and the Twins flipped him to the Yankees in a four-player trade for infielder Gio Urshela and catcher Gary Sánchez at the mid-point of his deal.

In his first year in New York, Donaldson stayed healthy and played an excellent third base, but he wasn’t the same at the plate. Last year, in the final year of his contract, he suffered a major hamstring in jury in the sixth game of the season, missed two months, didn’t hit upon his return, suffered another right calf strain in mid-July, and was released at the end of August while still on the IL.

Donaldson caught on with the Brewers and was their starting third baseman down the stretch and into the postseason, the ninth time in the last 12 years that he appeared in the postseason, but he clearly didn’t do enough in 2023 for a team to take a chance on the fragile, clearly diminished 38-year-old this offseason.

At his best, Donaldson was an incredibly entertaining player. Cocky (his Twitter handle was famously @BringerOfRain20), flashy, and hot-headed, he backed that style up with five-tool excellence during his late-twenties peak. Over his final two years with the A’s and his first two with the Jays, his age-27 to -30 seasons, Donaldson was simply one of the best players in baseball, hitting .284/.375/.518 (144 OPS+) while averaging 33 home runs, 84 walks, 103 RBI, 106 runs, and 309 total bases per season, playing a dazzling third base, and ranking among the game’s most efficiently aggressive baserunners to average a shockingly consistent 7.1 wins above replacement (per Baseball-Reference’s figures) per season.

In those four years, he made three All-Star teams, won two Silver Sluggers, and finished in the top eight in the MVP voting four times, the top four three times, and won the award in 2015. He’ll ultimately fall short of the Hall of Fame, but he had a Hall of Fame peak. We at MLBTR wish him all the best in the next phase of his life.

U.L. Washington Passes Away

U.L. Washington, who spent 11 years as a shortstop in the major leagues, primarily with the Kansas City Royals, and subsequently had a long, notable career as a minor-league coach, passed away on Sunday at the age of 70 from cancer.

Born and raised in southern Oklahoma, Washington’s given name, which he shared with an uncle, was U.L. As a youth, he played Little League and American Legion ball. Washington played baseball and basketball at his tiny high school (his graduating class was 15 students), and he played one year at Murray State College before dropping out because there was “too much partyin’” going on at the school.

At the prompting of his older brother, James, who was an usher at Royals Stadium, the Royals gave the 19-year-old U.L. a tryout. Impressed by his hustle, Kansas City signed Washington as an undrafted free agent in August 1972 and enrolled him in the Royals Baseball Academy in Sarasota, Florida. Washington reached Triple-A in 1975, but, upon repeating the level in 1976, suffered a season-ending fibula fracture in a collision at first base in late May.

The next year, he battled back and made his major-league debut as a September call-up. In 1978, he was a reserve middle infielder for Kansas City. He was back in that role in 1979, but an injury to incumbent Freddy Patek in August created an opportunity, and Washington took over as the Royals’ starting shortstop down the stretch.

A typical Royals player of the era, Washington was a slick-fielding, fleet-footed switch hitter who generated most of his value outside of the batter’s box. He remained the Royals’ primary shortstop from their pennant-winning season of 1980 through 1983, despite missing some time in 1982 due to back spasms.

Injuries and manager Dick Howser’s belief in rival Onix Concepción cut into Washington’s playing time in 1984. The following January, the Royals traded Washington to Montréal, where he backed up converted third baseman Hubie Brooks at shortstop. U.L. then finished his major-league career with the Pirates, bouncing between the majors and Triple-A in 1986 and ’87. After failing to make the Reds out of Spring Training in 1988, Washington, 34 and battered by a career spent mostly on hard, artificial-turf fields, retired.

In 1989, Washington managed the Pirates’ A-ball team in Welland, Ontario, and, as such, was part of the coaching staff that converted Tim Wakefield from infielder to knuckleballer. That fall, Washington was an All-Star in the Senior Professional Baseball Association, the first of his two seasons with that short-lived league.

Washington later coached in the minor leagues for the Royals (from 1991 to ’98, appearing in one more game as a player with Double-A Memphis in 1992), the Dodgers (1999), Twins (2001–02), and Red Sox (2003–14). With Single-A Greenville in 2013, he proved to be a key figure in Mookie Betts’ development as a hitter.

In addition to his time with the Royals and as a minor-league coach, Washington will be remembered for the toothpick he kept in the right corner of his mouth while playing. Among the reasons given for the toothpick were that he didn’t like chewing tobacco, he picked up the habit from his father, and that he kept a blade of grass in his mouth in high school but had to switch to the toothpick because of the Royals’ artificial turf. Tired of answering questions about it in the wake of the Royals’ World Series run in 1980, Washington abandoned the toothpick in 1981, but his average dipped 46 points that season, so he brought the toothpick back in 1982. In ’82, his average rebounded by 59 points and he enjoyed his best season at the plate, establishing multiple career bests.

Washington is survived by his wife, Sandra, daughter, Shawnté, son, Chris, and five grandchildren. We at MLBTR extend our condolences to Washington’s family, friends, and fans.

Roster Moves

• Dodgers purchased IF Andre Lipcius from the Tigers, transferred LHP Clayton Kershaw (surgery to repair gleno-humeral ligaments and capsule in left shoulder) to the 60-day injured list to make room on the 40-man roster.

Minor-League Transactions

• Angels released non-roster SS Richie Martin.

FINAL WORD

Mike Trout’s 10-year, $360-million extension with the Angels, which he signed in March 2019, has a $36-million AAV if you correctly count only the "new money" portion of the deal. That was the record for an extension prior to Wheeler’s new three-year deal, which has an AAV of $42 million, though the two contracts are obviously very different in length and career context.