Phillies earned a steal in new Aaron Nola deal to keep pitcher around for long run

On Wednesday, Aaron Nola agreed to a four-year extension with the Philadelphia Phillies worth $45 million.

As the excitement surrounding spring training for the Philadelphia Phillies continues this week, it looks like the team has another reason to be excited thanks to some news surrounding Aaron Nola being around for years to come.

Over the last couple of seasons, Nola has slowly been working his way into becoming one of the top pitchers in baseball, and the Phillies star deserves all of the credit in the world for taking the major leap that he did in 2018 with some career numbers.

Not only did Nola finish with a 17-6 record in 221.1 innings of action, but he also set a career high in strikeouts (224) as well, which was part of the reason he finished third in the voting for the Cy Young Award in the National League.

With an arbitration hearing originally scheduled for Thursday, it looks like the two parties were able to reach an agreement beforehand after it was announced on Wednesday how Nola and the Phillies had agreed on a four-year, $45 million extension.

At a quick glance, this seems like an absolute steal for Philadelphia when taking into consideration that Nola seems to be just scratching the surface of his true potential as one of the league’s most dominant pitchers.

Comparing Nola’s deals to other top pitchers across the league, it’s easy to make the case how much of a steal this is for Philadelphia, but most importantly avoids any sort of drama that could take place in spring training over the pitcher being unhappy.

Between all of the key offseason moves consisting of landing players like Jean Segura and Andrew McCutchen on top of still being in the sweepstakes to land Bryce Harper, the expectations feel different this year for Phillies heading into the 2019 season, in a good way of course.

Philadelphia already felt like they struck gold prior to last season when they were able to convince Jake Arrieta to come on board for a multi-year deal, and this Nola deal gives the organization even more reason to be excited over what the upcoming season could have in store.

Keep in mind how the Phillies were actual contenders for most of last season before everything fell apart in the worst possible way during the final two months, meaning there are plenty of reasons to believe they will finally make the necessary leap in 2019.

Now that Nola is officially in the books, maybe Philadelphia can accomplish the one deal that fans have been patiently waiting for over the last couple of months, which is obviously Harper.