Aaron Nola will be headed back to the city of Brotherly Love after signing a 7 year, $172M contract on Sunday.
Nola, who had garnered interest from multiple clubs, including Philadelphia’s NL East rivals, the Atlanta Braves, is currently undergoing a physical before the deal becomes official. The 30 year old has spent his entire 9 year MLB career with the Phillies, posting a 3.72 ERA and 1.12 WHIP across 1422 innings, with 1582 K’s since his big league promotion.
While his stats took a step backwards in 2023, Nola was nevertheless a vital front end starter for the Phillies, eating up 192IP while recording 200+ strikeouts for the 5th time in his career. The 6’2” righty was named an All-Star in 2018, and co-owns the MLB record for consecutive strikeouts in a game with 10 alongside Tom Seaver and Corbin Burnes.
A native of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Nola now becomes the 6th player on a nine-figure deal on the Philadelphia roster joining Bryce Harper, Nick Castellanos, J.T. Realmuto, Zack Wheeler, and Trea Turner.
Nola was one of only a handful of impact starters on the free agent front this offseason. With his mega-deal soon to become official, that leaves NL Cy Young winner Blake Snell, Japanese start Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and Jordan Montgomery as some of the remaining plug and play starters on the market.
While Shohei Ohtani will eventually rejoin Major League Baseball’s elite pitching ranks, he’ll be limited to DHing duties in 2024 after undergoing elbow surgery a few weeks prior. Ohtani and his agent have confirmed his intent to pitch once again in 2025.
-Kyle Skinner
Twitter: @JKyleSkinner
Photo: Ian D’Andrea. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.