Saturday brought tough news for the Philadelphia Phillies.
Zach Wheeler’s season is over.
Per MLB.com’s Paul Casella, Wheeler will require thoracic outlet decompression surgery to handle his diagnosis of venous thoracic outlet syndrome (TOS).
Wheeler’s expected recovery timetable is six to eight months, and the Phillies’ president of baseball operations, Dave Dombrowski, provided further context on Saturday.
“He’ll miss this season, but then we figure that he’ll come back in the 6-8 month time period and be the Zack Wheeler of old,” Dombrowski said, per Casella. “That’s what we’ve been told. Unless something unanticipated happens, he’ll be able to come back and pitch like he has before this.”
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Now that Wheeler is no longer in the picture for 2025, fans and analysts everywhere are re-assessing if the Phillies can be called bona fide World Series contenders.
On Tuesday, The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal appeared on the “Foul Territory” podcast to weigh in on the Wheeler news and how it impacts Philly’s title chances.
“Can they win the World Series without Zack Wheeler?” Rosenthal said.
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After asserting that Philadelphia still has a very good starting rotation without Wheeler, Rosenthal pointed to other factors.
“Given that their bullpen is much improved with (Jhoan) Duran and David Robertson, I still like them,” Rosenthal said. “And we talk about hunger, and desire and all that stuff … the intangibles. They’ve got that, too, because they have not won a World Series with this group, and this group is getting older.”
“(J. T.) Realmuto and (Kyle) Schwarber (are) free agents … I expect they probably will re-sign both, but they know this is their time,” Rosenthal continued. “It’s not going to get any easier next year.”
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“So I would expect that the Phillies will make a strong push … do they have the starting pitching necessary? … Yes, in my opinion, they still do.”
The Phillies entered Tuesday with a 76-55 record, six games ahead of the second-place New York Mets in the National League East division.
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