SCOTTSDALE, Az. — Right place. Right time. Right arm.
Zack Wheeler has hit the trifecta. Just about every pseudo-contender or better is looking for starting pitching. And Wheeler is positioned to capitalize on that because 1) he has had consecutive healthy, successful seasons for the first time, 2) he does not turn 30 until May and has not even thrown 800 major league innings, 3) he possesses the kind of talent that pretty much every analytic front office believes they can derive more from and 4) as one executive said, “There is an A Group (Gerrit Cole and Stephen Strasburg) and there are going to be teams that fail to get one of the ‘A’ guys and other teams that just can’t afford it, and (Wheeler) is the best of the B Group and everyone pretty much will believe they could afford him.