Categories: Phillies Nuggets with Tim Kelly

With trade deadline in rearview, Aaron Nola’s future comes into focus

Aaron Nola can become a free agent this offseason. (Cheryl Pursell)

The trade deadline has passed. For better or for worse, these are the 2023 Philadelphia Phillies, who will attempt to make a deep playoff run for the second consecutive year. To do so, they’ll need drastic improvements from some of the internal stars they have, relative to how they’ve performed so far this year.

While Trea Turner — in the first season of an 11-year/$300 million deal — is at the forefront of that list, so too is Aaron Nola. And as Nola approaches free agency, the stakes are much bigger for him personally. If Turner doesn’t rebound in 2023, so be it, he’s under contract with the Phillies for another decade. If there’s not a rebound from Nola, he stands to cost himself some money, whether it’s from the Phillies or another team, on the open market.

Had Nola become a free agent last offseason — fresh off of a World Series appearance and leading all pitchers in FanGraphs‘ calculation of WAR — there wouldn’t have been any real debate about what the Phillies should do. If it took matching the six-year/$162 million deal that the New York Yankees gave Carlos Rodón, that would have made sense for the Phillies. If it took topping Rodón’s deal, well, we’ve already seen in 2023 that Nola is much more durable.

On Feb. 17, Matt Gelb of The Athletic reported that the Phillies and Nola were discussing a long-term deal, adding that “there appears to be momentum to reach an agreement sometime this spring.”

But such a deal never came together, and president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski noted on March 25 that the Phillies had broken off talks with Nola.

“We think the world of him,” Dombrowski told Alex Coffey of The Philadelphia Inquirer. “Quality pitcher, quality human being, but sometimes you get to this point where you’re not able to consummate a deal that both sides feel comfortable.”

Still, the thought from both Dombrowski and Nola’s agent, Joe Longo, was that this was just a matter of tabling things until the end of the season, and resuming conversations then. By all indications, that’s still the plan.

If the Phillies and Nola’s representatives have spoken at all about a deal since then, Dombrowski didn’t seem inclined to reveal it when asked about where things stand by Phillies Nation prior to the trade deadline. Dombrowski simply said that he doesn’t publicly discuss contract negotiations, while adding that his front offices don’t typically try to work on such deals during the season.

So, end of the season it is.

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That is, if a disappointing season for Nola hasn’t changed what the Phillies think about giving him a boatload of money ahead of his age-31 season.

Nola’s loudest critics are probably overrepresented in the media and on Twitter, or X, whatever it’s being called now. If he never pitches another game for the Phillies, he would go down as one of the best first-round picks in franchise history. September struggles were a real thing for Nola, but he posted a 2.93 ERA last September, before carrying a perfect game into the seventh inning on Oct. 2 in Houston, helping the Phillies to clinch their first playoff berth since 2011. In the postseason, he did struggle in the NLCS and World Series, but the Phillies wouldn’t have gone that far in the playoffs if not for stellar outings by Nola in the NLWCS and NLDS.

But the version of Nola that was one of the 10 best pitchers in baseball a season ago hasn’t consistently shown up in 2023. In 22 starts this season, Nola has a 4.43 ERA and 4.26 FIP. The 24 home runs that Nola has allowed are more than he gave up in 36 starts between the regular and postseason a year ago. Just about any way you slice it, this has been a bad season for Nola.

The one thing worth noting is that despite this, Nola has remained a horse, as his 138 innings pitched are sixth in baseball. Since the start of the 2018 season, Nola’s 1,009 2/3 innings pitched are tops in baseball, with Gerrit Cole the only other pitcher having thrown more than 950 innings in that span. Even when Nola’s struggling, he still almost always gives you six or more innings in a start. It’s a legitimate question to ask how the Phillies would replace that type of steadiness from Nola.

It will be interesting to see, though, how the Phillies view the 1,366 1/3 innings pitched that Nola has since making his Major League Debut in July of 2015. Certainly, in the present they love that there’s never a question of whether he’ll be on the mound every fifth day. But do the Phillies believe he has another half decade, give or take, of being able to do that in him?

If Nola’s results don’t improve, it will also be curious to see how the Phillies evaluate his 2023 season. After finishing third in NL Cy Young Award voting in 2018, Nola posted a 3.87 ERA and 4.03 FIP in 2019, a relatively disappointing season. But he bounced back nicely in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season. Nola surrendered 26 home runs in 2021, but returned to form in 2022, finishing fourth in NL Cy Young Award voting.

Maybe this is just who Nola is: a pitcher that is sometimes great, more often very good, but will mix in some frustrating stretches as well. But in the end, you look up at the end of the season and he’s thrown 200 innings. You look up at the end of six years, and he’s had three excellent seasons, and some struggles for portions of the other three. Is that type of pitcher worth a five-year/$160 million deal, or something like that? It would certainly help to enter the open market on a high note, but the guess here is that if the Phillies won’t meet Nola’s asking price this offseason, another contender(s) will.

That doesn’t mean that Dombrowski 100% should re-sign Nola, but what is the scenario where he leaves and the Phillies are a better team in 2024 for it? Who is going to eat up all those innings? Who will have higher highs than Nola? Lucas Giolito of the Los Angeles Angels, Marcus Stroman of the Chicago Cubs, Julio Urías of the Los Angeles Dodgers and Eduardo Rodriguez of the Detroit Tigers can all become free agents this offseason, offering potential alternatives to Nola. But have any of them been better than Nola, flaws acknowledged, over the last five years? Nope, and it’s not really that close.

Could the Phillies try to pry a former Cy Young Award winner away from their current teams, like Shane Bieber with the Cleveland Guardians or Corbin Burnes with the Milwaukee Brewers? Sure, but it’s fair to wonder if they have the prospect depth to get a deal done like that without including someone like Ranger Suárez in return. In theory, is Burnes better than Nola? Yes. Would you, in a vacuum, give up Suárez to acquire Burnes? Sure. But are the Phillies a better team with just Burnes, or with the combination of Suárez and Nola? That’s a much more difficult discussion, and represents the difference between just talking about these type of moves and actually having to make them in the context of building a roster. Sure, a rotation with Bieber and Zack Wheeler at the top of it would be great in 2024. But then both would be eligible to become free agents at the end of the season, leaving the Phillies in a bind.

These are all the factors that need to be considered when evaluating Nola’s future with the Phillies. It’s possible that he’s in his final weeks in red pinstripes. But be careful what you wish for.