The numbers say the Phillies shouldn’t invest big money in Aaron Nola. But do they have a choice?

The most interesting man of the Phillies offseason had a quiver in his voice.

“All I know is that we’ve come a long way since I came up in 2015,” Aaron Nola said as he stood in the Phillies clubhouse on Tuesday night. “To be a part of that, to see everything through, I’m pretty blessed.”

It might not be over. The numbers and circumstances suggest that it should be. But sentiment and immediacy may well take precedent in the Phillies’ dealings with their most prominent free agent.

The respect is mutual. So is the desire. If the whole world operated by the Phillies’ familial small-business ethos, the matter would already be decided. Nola would have signed a contract extension that guaranteed to double his career earnings while sacrificing a shot at a bigger jackpot. The Phillies would have retained their longest-tenured player and top-of-the-rotation fixture while assuming the risk of a pitcher past 30.

Needless to say, that didn’t happen. After offseason contract negotiations stalled, Nola’s last season before free agency often felt like an elegy. He knew the circumstances. He understood that everyone else knew them too. He rarely bristled, never denied reality when the topic of his future arose. There was a Zen-like quality about him, a mixture of nostalgia and self-aware maturity that often comes with turning 30. He was an NLCS champion, a father-to-be, a leader in his clubhouse, an elder in his profession. Part of it was his low-key, Cajun demeanor. But a lot of it was the acceptance of uncertainty.

“It’s the hard part of the business, right?” Nola said. “You spend all year together, battling through the ups and downs, successes and struggles. It’s what makes the game so pretty. It’s what makes a good team a good team.”

It has been framed as a tough decision, but there’s nothing tough about it. Not if you look at the track record of pitchers who preceded Nola. Over the last 15 years, Nola is one of 20 pitchers to throw at least 1,400 innings by the start of his 31-year-old season. Half of that group retired without another productive season. Done at 30: Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain, Madison Bumgarner, Yovani Gallardo, Rick Porcello, Felix Hernandez. Done at 31: Stephen Strasburg, Chris Sale, Felix Hernandez. Done at 32: Johnny Cueto, Mike Leake.

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The only outliers are Jon Lester, Zack Greinke, Max Scherzer, and Justin Verlander. Gerrit Cole seems headed there. Clayton Kershaw remains effective when he is healthy, but he has averaged just 110 innings since turning 32.

Beyond those six pitchers, there are maybe three who might have been worth even a three-year, $75 million deal at 31: Gio Gonzalez, Cole Hamels, David Price.

Those aren’t good odds. They’re especially concerning when you look at the drop-off in Nola’s performance. He is coming off a season that could look obvious in hindsight. His strikeout percentage plummeted from 29.1 to 25.5, the lowest since his second season in the bigs. He set career highs in home run percentage and extra-base-hit percentage and a career low in ground-ball rate. Yes, he made his usual 32 starts and flirted with 200 innings. But he did it with a 4.46 ERA that was about 4% below league average.

There are two complicating factors. The first is how much Nola has meant to the organization throughout his nine seasons in the majors. Nobody embodies the current era of Phillies baseball like Nola. He has been there since the beginning. When Nola arrived as the No. 7 overall pick in 2014, Citizens Bank Park still rang with the echoes of two World Series and four division titles. Part of the reason the Phillies coveted him in that draft was the thought that he could help expedite a quick return to contention. He was in the big leagues a little over a year after his last game at LSU. Three years later, he was third in the Cy Young voting. A year after that, he signed the contract extension that will soon run out.

The most significant is the question of how the Phillies would replace Nola. Maybe they thought that Taijuan Walker would be an option when they signed him to a four-year, $72 million contract. If so, they were wrong. Frankly, he’s never been close to the level Nola was at even this season. Maybe they thought Andrew Painter would be enough to weather Nola’s departure. If so, they learned a lesson about counting on the durability of young arms.

The Phillies barely survived this regular season with Nola throwing 193⅔ innings. Barring a dramatic upgrade of the bullpen, it’s hard to see how they survive without someone giving them equal production. Of course, there is no guarantee that Nola will give them that. Hence, the conundrum.

The outcome depends largely on a couple of things that nobody yet knows.

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The first is the trade market at starting pitcher. The Phillies have a logjam in center field. It wouldn’t make sense not to look to move (at least) one of Johan Rojas, Brandon Marsh or Justin Crawford for an impact starting pitcher. Think Luis Castillo a couple of years ago. If there is a deal to be done, it could make a lot more sense than offering Nola the inflation-adjusted equivalent of Kevin Gausman’s five-year $110 million deal.

The second unknown is the market for Nola. He would make a ton of sense in a pitcher’s park where his penchant for the long ball is not as deadly. Frankly, he’d make a lot of sense for the Mets. That would be a tough one, no doubt. But it’s also possible the market responds to last year’s cautionary tales.

The third unknown is how much money the Phillies feel they can spend. How much will they earmark for an everyday bat who can play first base or corner outfield? A Rhys Hoskins return would make the most sense at the right price. After that, Teoscar Hernandez?

Nola said he wants to be back. The Phillies should clearly want him. But the price has to make sense, assuming money is an object.

The stage is set for an interesting offseason.