There it is. Finally. The first real free agent signing of the offseason, and it’s a big one.
Free agent starting pitcher Aaron Nola is re-upping with the Philadelphia Phillies on a very long-term deal:
In parts of 9 seasons with the Phillies, Nola has posted a 3.72 ERA over 1422.0 innings. That is more or less the pitcher he projects to be for several more years to come, and when he consistently does it over 32 starts per season, that’s worth a whole lot of money. The Phillies are clearly looking past his down (by the results) 2023 season.
There are just three active starting pitcher contracts in baseball for seven years or longer: Gerrit Cole, Jose Berrios, and Stephen Strasburg. So, yeah, seven-year deals for starting pitchers do not happen very often.
For the Phillies, though, I expect this was at least as much about bringing down the AAV of the deal, with a guarantee that settled in between where they were hoping ($150 million) and where Nola was reportedly hoping ($200 million). A $25-ish million AAV for a pitcher of Nola’s caliber is probably about right, though, so this deal feels like a win for him. To wit, his median projection at FanGraphs was six years and a $25 million AAV.
Nola turns 31 next year, so this deal locks him up through his age 37 season.
As far as market implications go, I don’t think the deal will alter the price tag on anyone else (beyond perhaps confirming that expectations across the board should remain at the higher end of projections). The Phillies were always going to be in the market for an arm in Nola’s tier, so this just takes them out of that market. Other noted suitors included the Cardinals and Braves, who’ll keep on pushing for another top-of-the-rotation starter. The Cubs were never seriously connected to Nola.