How much will it cost the Phillies to keep Aaron Nola beyond 2023?

There’s mutual interest in a contract extension for the Phillies' longest-tenured player. But as the free-agent market booms for even mid-rotation starters, the price might be going up.

Aaron Nola is the longest-tenured Phillies player, but his contract runs only through the end of the 2023 season.Read moreHeather Khalifa / Staff Photographer

by Scott Lauber

Published Dec. 17, 2022, 5:00 a.m. ET

From the outset of the offseason, the Phillies indicated they would stay away from the top end of the pitching market. And that’s mostly what happened. They have spent $387 million in free agency but pursued neither Jacob deGrom nor Justin Verlander and didn’t bid for Carlos Rodón.

But as a dozen or so starters flew off the board — including the one who was introduced Friday at Citizens Bank Park — it was difficult not to ponder a Phillies-centric pitching question.

How much will it cost to keep Aaron Nola beyond 2023?

Because the pitching market, like all aspects of baseball’s economy, is booming. Everyone expected deGrom and Verlander to receive enormous salaries — and at $37 million and $43.3 million per year from the Texas Rangers and New York Mets, respectively, they certainly did. But it’s a shockingly good time to be a mid-rotation starter. Look at the smile on Taijuan Walker, who buttoned a red-pinstriped No. 99 Phillies jersey at a news conference after finalizing the fifth-largest payout for a starter this winter.

Walker, 30, comes with a dirt-diving splitter that he threw more often this year en route to a 3.49 ERA in 29 starts for the Mets. But he also has an ERA+ of 105 over the last three years and the balance of his 10-year major-league career, meaning he has been 5% better than league average.

So, if the Phillies signed Walker for four years and $72 million — $18 million per year, or $2 million more than Nola will make in 2023 — what can Nola reasonably seek and expect to receive when he reaches free agency or opens talks on a contract extension?

Nola, six months younger than Walker, won’t turn 30 until June. He leads all major-league pitchers in starts (143) and innings (871⅔) since 2018. Few things in baseball are more certain than Nola starting every fifth game. And he isn’t only about quantity. He has a 110 ERA+ over the last three seasons, a 117 ERA+ in eight years in the majors, and two top-four finishes in the Cy Young Award balloting in the last five seasons, including a fourth-place ranking this year.

“We’d love to have him here in the organization for a long time,” Phillies president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski said recently.

There’s mutual interest. In a quiet corner of the clubhouse after the Phillies lost the World Series, Nola — the team’s longest-tenured player — noted the uniqueness of pitching in front of passionate, obsessed, hard-driving fans.

“I’d rather that than not,” he said. “They always said, ‘Get to the playoffs, and you’ll see it.’ With us, it’s been a long time and we hadn’t seen it. And we saw it. And it was cool. It was awesome. It’s addicting. I’m definitely looking forward to doing it again.”

The Phillies could approach Nola about a contract extension next month or during spring training. But they also have Zack Wheeler and now Walker under contract through 2024 and 2026, respectively. Ranger Suárez is under team control through 2025. And 19-year-old phenom Andrew Painter leads a group of pitching prospects that includes Mick Abel and Griff McGarry.

Likewise, given the market conditions this winter, the idea of free agency must be enticing. Rodón, six months older than Nola and with only one season of at least 175 innings, just signed a six-year, $162 million deal with the New York Yankees. Chris Bassitt, 3½ years older than Nola and coming off a career-high 181⅔ innings, got three years and $63 million from the Toronto Blue Jays.

And if Nola does get to free agency, he would be among the most accomplished prime-age pitchers (non-Shohei Ohtani division) in a market that could also include Julio Urías, Blake Snell, Luis Severino, Jack Flaherty, Lucas Giolito, Frankie Montas, and Germán Márquez. Scott Boras, Walker’s agent who represents neither Wheeler nor Nola, referred to them as “No. 1 and 1A pitchers.”

There were two notable contract extensions for starting pitchers late last season. Joe Musgrove and Luis Castillo would have been free agents this winter. But Musgrove, who grew up in San Diego and preferred to stay home after getting traded to the Padres in 2021, agreed in August to a five-year, $100 million extension. A few weeks later, the Seattle Mariners locked up Luis Castillo to a five-year, $108 million deal after trading four prospects at the deadline to get him from the Cincinnati Reds.

“We thought we’d have a chance,” Mariners president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto told reporters at the time. “It’s hard to do when players are entering the final year of their club control. You never know which way it’s going to go with free agency right there on the horizon. But we were willing to pay free-agent prices to make it happen, and ultimately, that’s what we did.”

Well, at least based on last winter’s market, when Robbie Ray (five years, $115 million with the Mariners) and Kevin Gausman (five years, $110 million with the San Francisco Giants) signed two of the three largest deals for starting pitchers.

A year later, the goal posts have moved. And if Castillo reached the market, he would’ve joined Rodón in the tier of starters directly below deGrom and Verlander. The Yankees, who tried hard to trade for Castillo, might have made him the Rodón offer. Even if Castillo achieves a vesting option for a sixth year in Seattle, the total value of the contract would rise to $133 million, $19 million less than Rodón’s guarantee.

Nola is six months younger than Castillo and Musgrove. Over the last five years, he has a better ERA (3.47) and more wins above replacement (23.9) than both of them (3.64, 16.6 for Castillo; 3.61, 10.3 for Musgrove).

It would seem, then, that their extensions represent Nola’s floor in future talks with the Phillies. With free-agent prices rising, the ceiling may be closer to Rodón’s contract.

But what it may come down to, as much as anything, is how the Phillies value what they know vs. what they project.

Three years ago, when the Phillies signed Wheeler, they paid a premium ($118 million) for what they believed was top-of-the-rotation upside. They were correct. In introducing Walker on Friday, Dombrowski suggested the right-hander’s success in using his splitter more often this year portends well for the coming seasons.

“I think when Tai found his splitter, all things began to form into a confidence level, a consistency level,” Boras said. “This is one of those situations for me where I believe the athlete is forming into the pitcher, and we’re going to see performance levels out of Tai that come with his experience, his knowledge or his repertoire that we haven’t seen before.”

But Boras also noted the decreasing number of pitchers who reach 150 innings in a season. Walker was among 31 who got to that mark in each of the last two years. Nola is one of only 10 who have done it four times since 2018.

“You’re always looking for that edge in a starting pitcher on a particular day,” Dombrowski said, with Walker seated at his side. “It’s something that we felt was extremely important for us to find that established quality guy to give us those innings.”

Nola is as established as anyone.

Now, how much are the Phillies willing to spend to keep him?