Aaron Nola is one of the 10 best pitchers in baseball.

There. I said it.

I’m tired of the narratives around the Phillies co-Ace – and yes, he is an ace, no matter what you think:

With apologies to Jason Kelce and his Super Bowl parade speech, I offer you the Aaron Nola untruths:

  1. Aaron Nola is inconsistent. Sometimes you get good Nola – like his complete game shutout in the Phillies 4-0 win over the Cincinnati Reds Thursday. And sometimes you get the bad Nola – like his last start against the Mets.
  2. Aaron Nola only pitches well against bad teams and doesn’t pitch well against good teams.
  3. He may have been a Cy Young finalist, but Nola never pitched that well before that season, nor since.
  4. Aaron Nola doesn’t pitch well in September and October, when the games matter most.

Let’s tackle these one at a time.

Inconsistency. It’s a word thrown around too often in sports, especially in baseball. Sometimes it’s replaced by “streaky,” as if that’s a bad thing too. Not that this is a Rhys Hoskins story, but someone pointed out that Rhys is in a cold streak again, and while he hasn’t been great the past week, he’s a consistent .800+ OPS guy, a consistent 125+ OPS+ guy. A consistent 30HR+ (or pace) guy year in and year out. Name a team in baseball who wouldn’t take that from one of their starters every year?

Right… there isn’t one.

But, back to Nola. The cacophonous roar of the anti-Nola brigade comes out of hiding once every seven starts or so if he either has a bad game, or he pitches well enough, but the team loses anyway because the guy on the other side pitched just a little bit better.

It’s those games that fuel this “Aaron Nola isn’t an ace” mantra.

I’m going to share some data with you. Both from this season and from his career. Hopefully it will shed some light on just how good a pitcher the Phillies have now, have had for the past eight seasons, and should have for years to come (sign the guy).

As far as that inconsistency label, it couldn’t be more false.

Not only is Nola consistent in his appearances –  He has thrown more innings and started more games than any pitcher in baseball in the last six years – but he is consistent in his production.

He has compiled 29.3 WAR so far in his eight major league seasons. That’s in 196 starts, or better yet, in 1,190 innings.

The number of pitchers all-time who have achieved a WAR of 29.0 or better in their first 8 seasons pitching is 117, of which Nola is one.

But how many have done it in fewer than 1500 innings?

That would be 19 pitchers. Nola is one.

How many have done it in fewer than 1200 innings?

That would be one. Aaron Nola.

That doesn’t seem inconsistent, now, does it? In fact, it’s pretty special.

But, let’s go further. Let’s look at a similar criteria. Pitchers with at least 1,175 innings pitched in their first eight years with a WHIP of 1.127 or lower.

All-time, there are 51. On that list, Walter Johnson, Jacob DeGrom, Clayton Kershaw, Juan Marichal, Tom Seaver, Grover Cleveland Alexander, Fergie Jenkins, Pedro Martinez, Christy Mathewson, Don Sutton, Roger Clemens… oh… and Aaron Nola.

Now, take that same criteria and say, “how many pitchers have done that while averaging at least 10 strikeouts per nine innings?”

The answer is five: DeGrom, Martinez, Chris Sale, Gerrit Cole, and Nola.

But, you know, it’s only the bad teams he pitches well against.

Well, for starters, of his 196 career starts, more than half of them have come against teams with winning records (101). So, by that measure alone you have to assume the above statement is wrong since he has very good career numbers.

But, for kicks, I dove deep. Here’s Aaron Nola, season-by-season against teams with winning records:

YEAR     W/L     ERA     IP     H     R     ER     BB     K     WHIP

2015     1-1     7.89     21.2  27   19    19      7      23     1.57

2016     2-4     6.15     41    56    39   28     11     44    1.63

2017     5-3     2.93    73.2  69    25   24      21     91    1.22

2018    7-4     3.09   107.2  82   38   37      27     108   1.01

2019    9-3     4.00   128.1 103  59   57     60      143   1.27

2020   2-3      3.58     32.2  25   13   13      8        48    1.01

2021   5-7      4.28     96.2  93   47   46     20      108   1.17

2022   3-8     3.61     97.1   82   40   39    15       118  1.00

TOT   34-33   3.95    599   537  280 263  169     683  1.18

His first two years in the bigs were obviously a challenge, but since then Nola has been pretty darn good against the best teams in the league.

Sure, he’s better against the sub-.500 teams (42-26, 3.23  591IP, 485H, 218R, 212ER, 150BB, 617K 1.07), but what pitcher isn’t?

The point is Nola has a winning record against winning teams in his career and has a 1.18 WHIP against them, which is pretty darn good.

Yeah, but in 2018 he was a stud, what’s he done since?

Well, there’s this:

How about this season? You want to see the major league leaderboard in WHIP this season?

  1. Justin Verlander HOU 0.85
  2. Shane McClanahan TB 0.86
  3. Tony Gonsolin LAD 0.87
  4. Aaron Nola PHI 0.93

He also leads the league in fewest walks per nine innings pitched (1.2) and in strikeout-to-walk-ratio (8.41). That ratio is currently ninth-best in the modern era (since 1900).

In fact, a lot of his numbers are on par or better than in 2018, when he finished third in the Cy Young voting. So, why isn’t his name being brought up as a contender this year?

Good question.

His WAR this year is 5.4. That’s second among all pitchers in the Majors behind only Sandy Alcantara (6.3). He’s fourth in the majors in strikeouts (185) and only five off the major league lead. Not bad for a guy who isn’t a fireballer from 60 feet six inches, eh? –

Well, he stinks in September and October, how you gonna talk your way  out of that one?

It is true that Nola’s numbers aren’t the greatest in September and October (9-14, 4.60 ERA, 1.30WHIP in 33 games). But, why doesn’t anyone ever say “his numbers stink in June?” Because they’re not much different (12-9. 4.42ERA, 1.29 WHIP in 32 games).

The notion that games in September and October are more important is hogwash. A game in April has the same value as a game in October. They all count the same. But, if you really want to focus on September, and say, maybe he tires out easily, keep in mind that he strikes out 11.5 batters per-nine innings, better than any other month.

He does tend to get a little more wild in September as he has more walks than any other month, which is likely why he has run into trouble there in the past, but this year, I’ll predict will be different.

If the rotation holds true, his six starts in September/October should come against San Francisco, Washington, Atlanta twice, the Cubs and Houston.

That’s three below-.500 teams, who we all agree he pitches well against, and two winning teams. Houston is a wild card, because who knows what those games at the end of the season will mean to either team, so it comes down to those two Braves games to really determine if Aaron Nola can pitch in September.

So far this season, Nola is 2-1 vs. the Braves with a 4.22 ERA, 25 strikeouts, two walks and a 0.99 WHIP.

I think he’ll be just fine.

Add in one more start in August in Arizona and say Nola finishes 13-10 and pulls that ERA down below 3.00, finishes atop the strikeout leaderboard, the WAR leaderboard, and the WHIP leaderboard – how can you not consider him a Cy Young candidate in 2022?

And even more egregiously, how can you not consider him an ace?