Forecasting Aaron Nola’s free-agent payday as contract talks with Phillies break off

Nola is a free agent after the 2023 season, and on Saturday, Phillies president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski said that extension talks had broken off.

“We are not going to get that done at this point,” Dombrowski said. “We are going to, at this point, break those off. We think the world of Aaron. We’ve talked long and hard with Aaron and his representative about the situation. We think the world of him, quality pitcher, quality human being, but sometimes you just get to this point where you’re just not able to consummate a deal where both sides feel comfortable.”

If you’re Nola, the benefit of doing a deal now would be to avoid the worst-case scenario of suffering a significant injury during the season that affects the next payday. But obviously, the sides did not get close enough financially during their conversations in spring training. Nola will apparently reach free agency, where he and Julio Urias are set to be the top two starting pitchers available. (Free-agent-to-be Shohei Ohtani is in a tier of his own.)

Nola, who has earned approximately $63 million in his eight-year big-league career, turns 30 on June 4. He is coming off his second-best season—a 3.25 ERA and 0.96 WHIP in 32 starts. He and Corbin Burnes were the only pitchers in the majors with so low an ERA and WHIP in at least 200 innings.