It’s not something that the Philadelphia Phillies need to do today, but Aaron Nola’s next long-term deal is something that the front office should be beginning to ponder right about now.
Following a disappointing 2021 season, Nola will enter his 20th start of the season Tuesday evening putting together one of the finest seasons of his career. While he wasn’t selected as an All-Star, Nola leads baseball with an 8.56 strikeout to walk ratio and is second in terms of innings pitched, having thrown 126 2/3 frames in 2022. His 3.5 fWAR is fifth among all pitchers.
Given that 2022 is the final guaranteed year of Nola’s four-year/$45 million deal, president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski was asked Tuesday if another long-term deal for the righty is on his radar.
“Well, it’s not something that we’ve discussed at all, but we really don’t have to at this time,” Dombrowski said. “Really, I don’t like to do contracts during the season, if I can avoid it, because I find that they can be distractions. And in Aaron’s case, it’s pretty simple in the sense that we do hold an option.”
The Phillies do indeed hold a $16 million club option on Nola for 2023, and it’s all but certain that they will exercise it.
“I don’t want to make any declarations at this point, but I’d say if he keeps pitching the way he is and he’s healthy, there’s a pretty good chance of it,” Dombrowski said with a smile.
You do wonder, though, if the Phillies will approach Nola and his representatives at Paragon Sports International about making what will be a very team-friendly salary in 2023 the first year of another long-term contract.
After all, Nola is still only 29, and given that he’s never been reliant on throwing in the high-90s, there’s no reason to think he won’t continue to pitch at a high level into his 30s.
From a business standpoint, it will be interesting to see if Nola wants to test the free-agent market this time around. After finishing third in National League Cy Young Award voting in 2018, Nola could have decided to play out his arbitration years and become a free agent following the 2021 season. Instead, he took the guaranteed money from the Phillies.
But by the end of the 2023 season, Nola will have made more than $56 million in his career. He and his family are set for life, which perhaps will make him less inclined to take such a team-friendly offer this time around.
Nola was an ace in 2018 and has pitched like one in 2022. In between those two points, he’s had peaks and valleys, but the bottom line is that since the 2018 season started, Nola is first among all starters in innings pitched (793 1/3 innings) and fifth in fWAR (18.9). Even if you don’t view Nola as an ace in the sense that Roy Halladay or Cliff Lee was, he’s been one of the most steady pitchers of this era. And frankly, he’s going to go down as one of the greatest pitchers in franchise history.
Robbie Ray signed a five-year/$115 million deal with the Seattle Mariners in free agency last winter. Granted, Ray was the defending American League Cy Young Award winner, but the guess here is that if you polled most executives, they’d take Nola over Ray.
Meanwhile, José BerrÃos, Ray’s former teammate, signed a seven-year/$131 million extension with the Toronto Blue Jays last November. BerrÃos is about a year younger than Nola and has very high top-end talent, but Nola has unquestionably been more consistent in his career.
Perhaps a deal somewhere in between those two would make sense. Maybe the Phillies could take the $16 million option that they’ll pick up for 2022 and tack on five additional years. If Ray has an average annual value of $23 million, something like $24 million annually on Nola’s new years would make sense. In total, you would wind up with a six-year/$136 million deal for a pitcher entering his age-30 season. Perhaps a limited no-trade clause or a full no-trade clause for the early years of the contract could be negotiated.
Anyway, it’s just something to consider. But Dombrowski and general manager Sam Fuld are likely more than aware that Nola’s price will only get higher the closer he gets to free agency, especially if he continues to pitch how he has for much of his career.
The Nuggets
- Zack Wheeler was part of some excellent rotations with the New York Mets, and is enjoying going blow for blow with Nola in 2022: “We had a good group of guys over there and we were always competing against each other. So come over here and have the same thing, it’s fun. It helps you concentrate, pitch and perform a little better when the guy does so well the night before, two nights before … whatever it may be. You try to go out there and best his, and it’s a friendly competition.”
- Don’t look now, but Alec Bohm is slashing .429/.463/.633 with a 1.096 OPS. That will, uh, play.
- After a big game Monday night, I asked Phillies interim manager Rob Thomson whether Bryson Stott could be a candidate to lead off: “Possibly, yeah. Maybe not tomorrow, but at some point. I see him as that type of guy. He’s gonna see a lot of pitches … he’s gonna walk … he’s gonna get on base. He’s gonna get his hits too, and he’s got some pop. And he hangs in on left-handers, so he’s that type of bat for me.”
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