Categories: Phillies Beat with Destiny Lugardo

Why draft pick compensation rules make an Aaron Nola extension more likely

Aaron Nola could become a free agent at the end of the 2023 season. (Photo by Gregory Fisher/Icon Sportswire)

The front office is interested in making Aaron Nola a Phillie for life.

It’s just a matter of Nola having that same level of interest in extending his relationship with the Phillies and the club meeting his asking price.

If the Phillies and Nola cannot come to an agreement, the Phillies do have other options on the free agent market. Julio Urías, Yu Darvish, Miles Mikolas, Blake Snell, Lucas Giolito and Tyler Mahle, along with Nola, are all set to become free agents after the 2023 season. Outside of Shohei Ohtani, who is in a class of his own, all other options on the market are downgrades compared to Nola.

But thanks to draft pick compensation rules, it doesn’t make much sense for the Phillies to replace Nola with another free agent.

Every free agent pitcher the Phillies could have interest in outside of Nola, from Darvish to Giolito, can receive (and will likely reject) a qualifying offer of one year at around a $20 million salary. The only notable exception is Max Scherzer if he decides to opt out of the final year of his three-year, $130 million contract, but that’s far from a guarantee.

The Phillies are well above the first luxury tax threshold and that means they will have to give up two draft picks plus a million dollars in international bonus pool money to sign a qualifying free agent next offseason.

It makes sense to do this if you are signing a superstar like Trea Turner, but doing this year after year will catch up to a team and you can argue that it already has considering the Phillies, despite having three of the best pitching prospects in baseball, have a bottom-ranked farm system that lacks position player talent.

Here are all the draft picks and bonus money the Phillies have lost over the years:

2018 Draft: 2nd and 3rd round picks and $1 million in international bonus pool money (signed Carlos Santana and Jake Arrieta)
2019 Draft: 2nd round pick and $500,000 in international bonus pool money (signed Bryce Harper)
2020 Draft: 2nd round pick and $500,000 in international bonus pool money (signed Zack Wheeler)
2022 Draft: 2nd round pick and $500,000 in international bonus pool money (signed Nick Castellanos)
2023 Draft: 2nd and 5th round pick and $1 million in international bonus pool money (signed Trea Turner)

If the Phillies are looking to replace Nola with Ohtani, nobody would care about losing two additional draft picks, but the same cannot be said if the Phillies swap Nola with Mikolas or Snell. It just wouldn’t make sense for the Phillies to give up more draft selections for a lesser pitcher.

With Dave Dombrowski leading the front office, the Phillies have operated under the premise that money is somewhat of an unlimited resource. Draft picks and young talent are not and there’s little reason to believe that this philosophy would not be applied when it comes to a possible Nola extension.

You could make the argument that the Phillies could trade for Nola’s replacement, but it all goes back to the idea of depleting the farm system to fix a problem that could be solved through spending money. Any team looking to trade their ace will be asking for at least two of Andrew Painter, Mick Abel or Griff McGarry and the Phillies seem keen on keeping all of them.

Speaking of Painter, could a spectacular debut season from the 19-year-old make the Phillies think twice about keeping Nola around? The answer is probably not since the Phillies are looking to stockpile top tier pitching and there’s always injury risk with young arms. It could take a couple seasons for Painter, who pitched 103 2/3 innings in 2022, to reach the 200 inning mark consistently the way Nola has.

Pitchers like Nola are unfortunately harder to find these days. He’s No. 1 in all of baseball in innings pitched since 2018 and hasn’t been injured since 2017. His incredible durability over the years could be viewed as a risk for any club looking to sign him to a long-term deal, but it’s a risk most clubs would be happy to take, especially if someone like 34-year-old Jacob deGrom, who has pitched only 224 1/3 innings since 2020, is getting $185 million.

It wouldn’t be surprising at all if Nola’s next contract reaches a similar dollar figure and considering draft pick compensation rules and the team’s willingness to spend on top talent as well as their affinity for Nola, the Phillies are very likely to be the team who will pay up.