2K20: Aaron Nola

[Gregg]

Regressed from 2018 numbers. Still a K's monster. Good whip. Not sure what to expect in era.

Fangraphs has him valued at $21 in a 12 team NL only. I would pay that all day.

But he is $29 in our NL only league and I traded him to make a run during the season last year. Now he is posted on the trade block. i am thinking about making an offer to acquire him using my spare parts. I would not give him a raise and just play him out.

A $50A deGrom was just part of a 4 player deal and Scherzer is $54 (I own him) to give you an idea of top pitching prices. Stras is $32b.

What do you think of 26 year old Nola for this year?

[Gregg]

There wasn't really any good explanation for Nola's struggles in 2019. His velocity didn't fall, he didn't miss any starts with injuries, and he didn't really change his pitch mix much. That's a good reason to think he'll bounce back in 2020, and he's being priced to do so.-Chris Towers CBS Sports

[scottw]

Short answer: pitching coach
Long answer: pitching coach and manager

Both,happily,are long gone. Phillies were ruled by strict adherence to metrics above everything the last 2 years, and it seriously screwed with a lot of guys, notably Nola and Hoskins. Coaching decisions were completely off the wall, again, driven solely by metrics and not good baseball principles. I expect things will straighten up this year, with old-school pitching coach and manager. They have said they will pay attention to metrics, but will manage more flexibly. We live with hope!

[kldub4life]

I think Nola is a great bet to bounce back in a big way. He had significant stretches of being the same stud pitcher from 2018. What killed his yearly numbers were his blow up starts. He had 7 starts last year where he gave up 5 or more earned runs (He had no such starts in 2018). And they came in 3 clusters:

4/3 - 4/15:
4/3: 6 ER
4/9: 4 ER
4/15: 5 ER

6/3 - 6/15
6/3: 6
6/15: 5

9/4 - 9/24
9/4: 5
9/9: 4
9/19: 5
9/24: 5

[kldub4life]

Short answer: pitching coach
Long answer: pitching coach and manager

Both,happily,are long gone. Phillies were ruled by strict adherence to metrics above everything the last 2 years, and it seriously screwed with a lot of guys, notably Nola and Hoskins. Coaching decisions were completely off the wall, again, driven solely by metrics and not good baseball principles. I expect things will straighten up this year, with old-school pitching coach and manager. They have said they will pay attention to metrics, but will manage more flexibly. We live with hope!

Not sure I understand your point, I know Jirardi being there will be different. But you lump the last 2 years together and Nola had a great 18, and disappointing 19, so I'm a bit confused.

[cavebird]

Short answer: pitching coach
Long answer: pitching coach and manager

Both,happily,are long gone. Phillies were ruled by strict adherence to metrics above everything the last 2 years, and it seriously screwed with a lot of guys, notably Nola and Hoskins. Coaching decisions were completely off the wall, again, driven solely by metrics and not good baseball principles. I expect things will straighten up this year, with old-school pitching coach and manager. They have said they will pay attention to metrics, but will manage more flexibly. We live with hope!

So Nola will be good for four months before having TJ surgery?

[joncarlos]

He stopped fooling people in 2019, the question for me is, can he fix that or was 2018 a fluke?

2018: 12.4% swinging strike rate based on a 73.7% contact rate, throwing 44.7% of pitches in the zone and a z-contact rate of 81.9%
2019: 11.0% swinging strike rate based on a 75.2% contact rate, throwing 39.9% of pitches in the zone and a z-contact rate of 85.7%

His first pitch strike rate went down from 69% to 62% last year. While his K/9 did go up, his K% was exactly the same.

He threw less pitches in the zone, but when he did, batters made more contact. He walked more guys (less pitches in the zone) and gave up harder contact (BABIP went from .251 to .295, HR9 went from 0.7 to 1.2).

My guess is that he isn't as good as he was in 2018 but he can bounce back a little bit. $21? Yes. $29? I'm not sure.

[scottw]

Not sure I understand your point, I know Jirardi being there will be different. But you lump the last 2 years together and Nola had a great 18, and disappointing 19, so I'm a bit confused.

The first Kapler season, 2018, was a feeling out year, the second, it seemed that he hammered his theories into everyone. You must pitch a certain way because the metrics say so, you must hit at a certain launch angle because the metrics say so. He really seemed to tighten his pitching and hitting discipline that second year and it had awful results. Like I said, it seemed Nola and Hoskins seemed to try oh so hard to do as he coached, but they just kept getting worse. The team didn't seem to have a lot of fun and were bogged down with theories for this, theories for that. Both those guys are just natural at what they do, and for a manager and coach to mess with them really set them back. I guess you just had to be here to see it day after day to really appreciate what was damaged on the team.

[kldub4life]

Per Michael Salfino @ TheAthletic

"Here are his stats from May 1 to September 1: 23 starts, 10-4, 143 IP, 110 hits, 15 HR, 51 BB, 162 Ks, 1.10 WHIP, 2.96 ERA."

[scottw]

Not sure I understand your point, I know Jirardi being there will be different. But you lump the last 2 years together and Nola had a great 18, and disappointing 19, so I'm a bit confused.

Something I just realized: In answering some other questions about Nola's dramatic fall-off from '18 to '19, I totally overlooked that he had different pitching coaches in each year. '19 was with the dreadful Chris Young [coupled with Kapler's total inability to manage his pitchers] It is noteworthy that his pitching coach from '18 got a job immediately after being fired---with the not=so=shabby Atlanta staff! Chris Young after getting fired---crickets!