Summary judgments: Nola’s free agent future, the Rojas/Marsh puzzle, a Mariota sticking point

Tying up some loose ends after another week ...

The Phillies are less than three months away from having to wrestle with their most difficult offseason decision in the last 40 years.

How much is Aaron Nola worth?

The Phillies have never faced the potential of having to part ways with a franchise legend before. Not like this. Jayson Werth was the closest they came to that in the last era. But he’d only been with the team for a few seasons when the Phillies goofed and let him walk. He didn’t have the cultural capital of guys like Jimmy Rollins, Chase Utley, Ryan Howard, Cole Hamels, Shane Victorino. John Middleton had it easy with those guys. The circumstances dictated a mutual parting of ways.

Pat Burrell? That’s a worthy comp. But the writing was on the wall long before the Phillies let him walk after the 2008 World Series. He finished on a good note, but his was a much different tenure than Nola’s.

Before that, you had Curt Schilling and Scott Rolen, both of whom wanted to leave and were granted their wish. Bobby Abreu’s departure was equally unceremonious. The ‘93 team more or less went its separate ways.

Nola? It feels different. Uncomfortably so. The Phillies made out like bandits on the four-year, $45 million contract extension he signed before the 2019 season. That’s not their fault, of course. It was a wise business decision, one that guaranteed Nola a life-changing bag of money in exchange for delaying free agency by a couple of years. From a risk-management perspective, you can’t separate that deal from the ones the Phillies gave Odúbel Herrera and Scott Kingery. You win some, you lose some. Hopefully, the winnings make up for the losings. In Nola’s case, they did.

» READ MORE: Sizing up an Aaron Nola contract in free agency: The comps, the Phillies factors, and one familiar case

Things might look different from Nola’s perspective. He will enter free agency this year heading into his 31-year-old season with about $58 million in career earnings. Agents will forever hold up his deal as evidence of why it makes more sense to go year-to-year in arbitration. From their perspective, Nola could have made nearly as much money, maybe more, in three years of arbitration as he did in the first three years of his extension. He also would have hit free agency at the age of 29, at which point he likely would have been in a line for a $100+ million guarantee.

The reality likely would have been more complex. Nola would have been hitting free agency after a year in which he posted a 4.63 ERA in 180 2/3 innings. That year’s Cy Young winner, Robbie Ray, signed for five years and $115 million. Maybe Nola would have gotten that. Maybe four years, $100 million, or six years, $120 million. If he’d played his cards perfectly, he might have gone the Carlos Rodon route, signing a one-year deal and then striking it big after his electric 2022 season.

Question is, how will the market judge him now?

There simply aren’t many players who have done things the way he has done them the last few years. His workload has been that of an old-school No. 1: 539 1/3 innings, behind only Sandy Alcantara (598 2/3) and Gerrit Cole. But his ERA is nearly a full run higher than either of those guys.

Nola in the marketplace is a lot like Nola on the mound: in a higher class than guys like Jameson Taillon (four years, $68 million) and Taijuan Walker (four years, $72 million), but in a lesser class than the Max Scherzers and Justin Verlanders of the world.

There’s a huge money gap between those two tiers. The Phillies’ problem is that it is impossible to project where Nola’s deal will end up skewing. For a pitcher who has suddenly become among the more home-run prone in the majors, they’ll face a lot more risk than teams who play in more pitcher-friendly environments. But he also means a lot more to the franchise.

Therein lies the difficulty. Nola is on the Phillies’ modern-day Mount Rushmore. Since 1961, he ranks seventh in innings, fourth in starts, fourth in strikeouts, sixth in wins. Carlton, Hamels, Schilling, Nola, Bunning -- combine longevity with productivity and that’s the list. I won’t argue if you think Larry Christenson and Chris Short belong in the group. Either way, it’s a small list.

Also small is the list of pitchers with Nola’s workload who end up having multiple season worth $25+ million after their 31st birthday. The most relevant cautionary tale is Madison Bumgarner. It’s going to be an interesting offseason.

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If you are unpleasantly surprised by what you’ve seen out of Marcus Mariota, you probably haven’t watched too much of the guy over the last few seasons. This is what $5 million buys you at a position where even Geno Smith is making $20+ million a year. As bad as Mariota has looked throwing the football this summer, he’s an experienced quarterback who can at least do some of the things that Jalen Hurts can do with his feet. There simply aren’t any quarterbacks walking the streets who would give a team a better chance of surviving an injury to Hurts. Certainly none that would be worth wasting any more than the money the Eagles have already spent. That includes Nick Foles.

Here’s a great Johan Rojas stat. Heading into Sunday, he had eight infield hits in 88 plate appearances. The two MLB leaders had 23 in 508 PAs and 404 PAs, respectively (Xander Boegarts and T.J. Friedl). With that number of PAs, at his current pace, Rojas would have 36 and 46 infield hits, respectively. Rob Thomson has plenty of managin’ to do as he navigates this stretch run with both Rojas and Brandon Marsh at his disposal.