Lost in the shuffle of Aaron Nola’s outstanding complete game shutout performance yesterday were the postgame comments of Phillies catcher J.T. Realmuto.

By now, you probably know there is quite a debate about Nola’s place among baseball’s elite pitchers. Some will point to his 4.27 ERA over 27 career September starts or occasional lackluster efforts like the ones he turned in against the Mets earlier this month.

Others will be quick to note that he wakes up this morning the owner of a 2.19 ERA, 28/3 K/BB ratio, and a 0.97 WHIP — even with those two underwhelming starts against the Mets.

Per FanGraphs, his 1.1 WAR is fifth among all starting pitchers this season.  There’s also stats like this one:

In fact, go back over the last three or four seasons and it’s hard to bunch numbers together that don’t place Nola with the game’s best.

After Nola’s first career complete game shutout on Sunday afternoon, Phillies manager Joe Girardi offered a theory on why some are reluctant to give Nola his due.

I think a lot of times when people think of aces, they’re really hard throwers, but he’s got great movement, he’s got great off-speed. He has the ability to miss bats because of that, and he does a really good job of sometimes getting the ball on the ground. Again, I think with people throwing so hard right now, and you see what [Jacob] deGrom is like, you see what Gerrit Cole has, I think people scream at that as “ace,” but there are different types of aces, and he’s one of them.

That makes some sense.

Go back two weeks ago when Jacob deGrom was consistently pumping 99+ mph at Phillies hitters for six innings. There’s a sense that deGrom is simply too much to handle, that his power is overwhelming.

Compare that to Nola, who yesterday threw 50 four-seam fastballs at an average of 92.3 mph. He maxed out at 94.3 mph. Go check out some area D-III colleges or high-level high school programs. Many of these schools will feature a guy or two with better fastball velocity than what Nola brings.

But just because the power isn’t as overwhelming as some other top starters doesn’t mean he’s any less dominant.

There’s also something to be said for a guy who can maintain this type of command with his 98th pitch of a game:

After yesterday’s effort, J.T. Realmuto had a strong message for those questioning Nola’s standing as an ace, those, who according to the guy many consider to be the game’s best catcher, just don’t know baseball.

“I would say it’s people outside of the game of baseball who are the ones that view it that way,” he said. “People in the clubhouse and people on the field know that he’s an ace — on this team and other teams. You just look at the guy’s resume. He gets outs and he shows up consistently, so I’m not really sure where that stipulation [that Nola is not an ace] comes from, but it’s not from people who know baseball.”

Well then.

On Gabe Kapler’s Return

Gabe Kapler will return to Citizens Bank Park tonight where he spent two seasons as the Phillies manager. As you know, things did not go as expected on the field and Kapler often irritated fans with his always rosy outlook and eccentric qualities (the ice cream story comes to mind).

I wrote about Kapler extensively during his brief tenure in Philadelphia, and while I’m ultimately willing to concede he was not the best fit in this town, I still don’t think he received a truly fair shake.

Prior to his dismissal in the fall of 2019, I wrote how things felt a bit personal when it came to how some fans felt about Kapler:

In fact, if this were truly about baseball or centered in understanding context, then the conversation would be focused on the bullpen, injuries, and the lack of organizational depth that became glaringly apparent in light of those injuries, and a razor-thin bench. It would be less, much less, about his relentlessly positive nature or press conferences.

The conversation would include considerable dialogue about a starting rotation that wasn’t good enough from the start, one that was also never adequately upgraded once those flaws became obvious. The inconvenient truth that the team still managed to outperform its win-loss expectancy by six games over the past two seasons, which, historically speaking, is an indication that a manager is actually maximizing what he has at his disposal, wouldn’t be so quickly dismissed, either.

Previously, I had compared Kapler to an overmatched real estate agent charged with selling a structurally-flawed house:

Who’s at fault here? The investor for picking the wrong builder? The builder for constructing a flawed home? Or the real estate agent for failing to sell the home? Yes, it’s entirely possible the real estate agent may ultimately prove incapable of getting a deal done with a better house, but it’s also clear that he hasn’t been given much of a chance in this situation.

That hypothetical isn’t all that different from the Phillies’ current situation. The investment group, or in this case, John Middleton, may ultimately elect to go with a different guy to get the job done, but to excuse the builder of blame would be an exercise in flawed logic, nor will it ultimately rectify the much larger issues that are preventing the desired results.

I have articulated plenty (and I mean plenty) of awful takes in my time, but as Joe Girardi found out in 2020, it’s hard make things work when a front office miscalculates so often.