Zack Wheeler All-Star Game snub is a bad look for MLB and the Phillies pitcher
When Zack Wheeler’s Hall of Fame case is laid out for BBWAA voters, he will have more than a few points in his favor.
The 36-year-old right-hander has twice led his league in Wins Above Replacement, collected Cy Young Award votes in five different seasons, and could add two more to that total before his contract with the Philadelphia Phillies expires in 2027.
Wheeler is also a three-time All-Star. He quite nearly made a fourth All-Star team, but through a series of missteps will have to wait until next year.
That’s because Wheeler, who is starting for the Phillies on July 12, is unable to pitch in baseball‘s annual exhibition game of its best players under its current rules. Pitchers who start on the last day before the All-Star break are ineligible to appear in the All-Star Game.
When he was left off the National League All-Star roster this week, Wheeler made his distaste for the eligibility rules clear.
“I feel like I was right there, so maybe they put me in, shoot me right back out, and put somebody else in,” Wheeler told reporters on July 7. “There’s certain ways to do it. You figure (MLB) would have a clue about it by now, with how many All-Star Games they’ve had. I think it’s kind of a BS rule that just because I pitch on a certain day, I get punished for it, I guess.”
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The logic behind the rule is sound. It’s essentially a mechanism to protect pitchers from overuse, since the All-Star Game is separated by only two days from regular-season games on each side of the calendar.
But there’s a disconnect between the practicality of the rule, and the reality of “protecting” players from injury. Generally speaking, players are able to protect themselves without help from MLB.
Days after Shohei Ohtani was voted to start for the National League at designated hitter, the Los Angeles Dodgers announced Ohtani was dealing with left knee irritation.
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Ohtani was scratched from his final pitching assignment before the break, and ruled out from traveling to Philadelphia for the All-Star Game, but continued to DH for the Dodgers.
The Toronto Blue Jays continued to use Vladimir Guerrero Jr. as their starting first baseman, days after he declined to play in the All-Star Game after being voted to start by fans.
“I’m having a little bit of issues with my lower back,” Guerrero told reporters through an interpreter. “I think that comes first.”
Wheeler, in effect, said he would have declined the invitation after being named an All-Star, then allowed MLB to choose a replacement.
That’s exactly what MLB did.
Charlotte Varnes of The Athletic reported that Wheeler said the league approached him July 10 about being named a replacement, but declined because he felt disrespected.
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Dodgers pitcher Justin Wrobleski was named an All-Star replacement for Chase Burns instead.
No one wins here.
Wheeler loses an opportunity for All-Star recognition before his home fans at Citizens Bank Park, and a possible credential on his Hall of Fame ledger, for no good reason. The league offered to fulfill his dream of being named an All-Star. But because they did so after Wheeler complained about the process — not before — he won’t get the credit that usually comes with going 9-1 with a 2.28 ERA in 14 starts before the break.
The NL All-Star roster will look the same, only with worse optics for MLB.
The league instituted the rule that prevented Wheeler from pitching in the game for the right reasons. But no pitcher who starts on the final day before the All-Star break is getting permission from their team to appear in the game, given the extreme caution around injuries and overuse that act as hard guardrails in 2026.
MLB probably has one rule too many. But a simple, proactive conversation behind closed doors could have served as a workaround. In the end, the closed-doors conversation was too little and too late.
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