Phillies sign Zack Wheeler to record-setting contract extension
The Philadelphia Phillies have extended their ace.
Zack Wheeler and the Phillies have agreed to a three-year, $126 million contract extension, The Post’s Jon Heyman confirmed, meaning the 33-year-old pitcher will not become a free agent in the fall.
The extension begins with the 2025 season, so Wheeler will be a free agent after the 2027 season.
“This is a first class organization, and I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else,” Wheeler said at a press conference on Monday, according to the Philadelphia Baseball Review.
With an average annual salary of $42 million, Wheeler’s deal is the most lucrative contract extension in MLB history.
It’s also right up there with the richest deals ever signed by pitchers.
Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander signed deals with the Mets that had an AAV of $43.3 million.
Wheeler is entering the final year of his five-year, $118 million deal, and the extension locked him up with star teammates Bryce Harper and Trea Turner, who are signed through 2031 and 2033, respectively.
The Phillies have reached the World Series and NLCS the past two seasons, coming up just shy of the franchise’s first championship since 2008.
The deal does not contain a formal no-trade clause, but because Wheeler has more than ten years of MLB service, once he plays his fifth season with Philadelphia, he will be able to veto any trade with his 10-and-5 rights.
In his four years as a member of the Phillies — after the Mets failed to re-sign him — he’s posted a 3.06 ERA in 101 starts with 675 strikeouts over 629 1/3 innings pitched.
He was an All-Star in 2021 and won the Gold Glove award last season.
The front of the Phillies rotation seems set for years now, with Wheeler and Aaron Nola, who signed a seven-year, $172 million deal in November, now under long-term deals and Ranger Suarez as a solid No. 3.
“In the postseason when he takes that ball, I can’t think of anyone I want to be there more than Zack,” Phillies team president Dave Dombrowski said on Monday.
Wheeler was the No. 6 overall pick in the 2009 draft, going to the San Francisco Giants.
He was traded to the Mets in 2011 for Carlos Beltran.
A member of the Mets for seven years, he only pitched in five seasons, missing the 2015 and ’16 seasons after undergoing Tommy John surgery.