Categories: Phillies Nuggets with Tim Kelly

Will Aaron Nola’s even-year dominance continue in 2024?

PHILADELPHIA, PA – SEPTEMBER 26: Philadelphia Phillies catcher J.T. Realmuto (10) walks in from the bullpen to the dugout with starting pitcher Aaron Nola (27) prior to a regular season game between the Pittsburgh Pirates and Philadelphia Phillies on September 26, 2023, at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia, PA. (Photo by Brandon Sloter/Icon Sportswire)

Even in an age where there is a metric that attempts to quantify just about everything, there are still things in baseball that don’t make sense. For example, why does Philadelphia Phillies slugger Kyle Schwarber seem to get scalding hot every June? No one — including Schwarber — knows exactly why, but you can bet that when the calendar flips to June, he’s going to start hitting home runs at a prolific rate.

There’s another trend with the Phillies that seems to be unexplainable, but is due to come back in their favor in 2024 — Aaron Nola seems to be dominant in even years, and much less so in odd years.

Consider Nola’s last six seasons as evidence:

2018: 2.37 ERA, 3.01 FIP, 17 home runs allowed, 212 1/3 innings pitched, 5.5 WAR, All-Star, third-place finish in NL Cy Young Award voting

2019: 3.87 ERA, 4.03 FIP, 27 home runs allowed, 202 1/3 innings pitched, 3.4 WAR

2020 (pandemic-shortened season): 3.28 ERA, 3.19 FIP, nine home runs allowed, 71 1/3 innings pitched, 2.0 WAR, seventh-place finish in NL Cy Young Award voting

2021: 4.63 ERA, 3.37 FIP, 26 home runs allowed, 180 2/3 innings pitched, 4.4 WAR

2022: 3.25 ERA, 2.58 FIP, 19 home runs allowed, 205 innings pitched, 6.3 WAR (top mark among all MLB pitchers in 2022), fourth-place finish in NL Cy Young Award voting

2023: 4.46 ERA, 4.03 FIP, 32 home runs allowed, 193 2/3 innings pitched, 3.9 WAR

Clearly, one of the differentiating factors between when Nola is pitching at an ace level and when he’s not is keeping the ball in the yard, something he struggled with a season ago. When asked last season why Nola had such a spike, manager Rob Thomson joked that one year in your career, you’re bound to give up the most home runs you ever have. And that’s true, but why Nola gave up 13 more home runs in 2023 than 2022 is unclear. And why he generally seems to give up a noticeably more home runs in odd years than even years is even more difficult to try to quantify.

Nola is hardly the first player to have a trend like this. Brett Saberhagen had a stretch with the Kansas City Royals in the late-1980s where he was a much better pitcher in odd years, winning the AL Cy Young Award in both 1985 and 1989. Marcus Semien has been an AL MVP finalist three times in his career, once with the Oakland Athletics (2019), once with the Toronto Blue Jays (2021) and once with the Texas Rangers (2023). All came in odd years. Sometimes these things just happen in sports.

The good news for the Phillies is that whether it’s an even or odd year, Nola has been workhorse, racking up 1,065 1/3 innings pitched since the start of the 2018 season. Only Gerrit Cole — who seems to be on a trajectory for Cooperstown — has thrown more innings over that span. The durability for Nola is one of the reasons the Phillies were willing to give him a seven-year/$172 million deal this offseason, despite a down contract year.

Even better news in the short term for the Phillies is that the first season of that pact will come in an even year. And if history is any indicator, that means Nola will be in the NL Cy Young Award race in 2024. Just don’t strain yourself thinking too hard about it. Not everything in sports needs to make sense.

More Nola Nuggets

At this month’s Philadelphia Sportswriters Association Dinner, I asked Nola about what it will be like to show up to Spring Training and not have Rhys Hoskins as part of the Phillies. At the time, Hoskins hadn’t yet signed with a team, but the Milwaukee Brewers officially announced

his two-year/$34 million deal Friday, a pact that includes a player opt-out and a mutual option for 2026.

“I love Rhys, man,” Nola said. “I feel like we came up together pretty much. I always will respect how he plays the game … how he goes about his business. No matter what’s going on with him, he’s always on the field. He’s always playing … he’s always working hard, trying to get better. And, he knows how to play the game the right way. I’ve always respected that about him and I always will.”

Prior to the dinner — where Nola received the Ed Snider Humanitarian Award — Nola also spoke on how difficult it was for him to get over the Phillies coming up just short of their ultimate postseason goal for the second year in a row.

After re-signing with the Phillies in December, Nola told Phillies Nation that he believes Zack Wheeler has earned the chance to make an Opening Day start in 2024. When asked about this comment at the PSWA dinner, Thomson said he wasn’t aware. Obviously, in January, the Phillies haven’t yet made that decision. An injury may decide it for them, as it did in 2022 when Wheeler wasn’t ready to start on Opening Day. But while Wheeler is deserving of making his first career Opening Day start, Nola has made six consecutive Opening Day starts. There’s something cool about that, and with his new contract, he now has the chance to run that all the way up to 13.