Extending Aaron Nola Should be a Top Priority for Phillies

With his contract due to expire after the 2023 season, the Philadelphia Phillies must prioritize extending Aaron Nola.

Author:
Alex Carr
Nov 17, 2022 7:00 PM EST

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Philadelphia Phillies

With Major League Baseball’s offseason excitement in full swing, there has been a metric ton of buzz surrounding the Philadelphia Phillies and their pursuits of big-name free agents. A sizable hole at shortstop and a depth-lacking rotation appear to be the areas of most necessity for the Phillies — but the rumor mill has distracted fans from other important endeavors: such as keeping some of the team’s more important players around long term.

One of those players is Aaron Nola, who finished fourth overall in 2022 National League Cy Young voting earlier this week.

The Phillies unsurprisingly picked up Nola’s team option some days ago, exercising the final year of his current contract in the process. Thus, it is imperative that the Phillies figure out a long-term solution with the 29-year-old right-hander, who is coming off of arguably the best season of his career.

Nola has been among the best starters in baseball over the last half-decade. Since 2018, he ranks fifth among all qualified starters in fWAR, behind only Jacob deGrom, Max Scherzer, Gerrit Cole, and Zack Wheeler. Nola leads baseball with the most innings pitched in that span. He has been one of, if not the most sturdy, reliable starting pitcher in the game.

That’s one of the Louisiana native’s greatest selling points — he is as iron man a starter as they come in today’s day and age. Plus, he has significant postseason experience after this past season, after he was instrumental in the Phillies achieving their first playoff berth in over a decade.

An extension for Nola would look similar to what top-end starting pitchers have received in free agency of late. Something similar to Kevin Gausman’s five-year, $110 million deal with the Blue Jays, Luis Castillo’s five-year, $108 million deal with the Mariners, or, surprise, Zack Wheeler’s five-year, $118 million deal with the Phillies.

Whatever he ends up receiving will be a worthwhile price to pay for the Phillies, and their first priority should be preventing the home-grown talent from reaching free agency — right up there with any free agent pursuit, trade, or personnel decision they could make.

Nola has had his ups and downs with the Philadelphia fan base, but there is no denying that the former first rounder is one of the best starting pitchers in the game at this current moment. Letting talent like that waltz into free agency would be a grave mistake, and one that the Phillies would surely regret.

As much as fans have clamored for the team to sign Trea Turner, Xander Bogaerts, and every free agent in between, they should be causing the same fuss over extending Nola — their team’s greatest development success in recent memory.