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Aaron Nola Can Enter the Cy Young Race With a Strong Start Against the Mets

Philadelphia Phillies starter Aaron Nola is having an excellent season, but he needs to get his ERA a little bit lower to warrant serious Cy Young consideration.

Author:
Leo Morgenstern
Aug 19, 2022 3:00 PM EDT

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Philadelphia Phillies

It seems like Aaron Nola thrives in even-numbered years.

In 2018, he made his first All-Star Game and finished with a 2.37 ERA en route to a third-place Cy Young finish. He wasn’t nearly as sharp in 2019, but he bounced back in 2020 and came seventh in Cy Young voting.

In 2021, he struggled with inconsistency and finished with an uncharacteristically high 4.63 ERA. Now, in 2022, he is back to ace status. Despite not making the All-Star team, Nola ranks among the best pitchers in the National League. He will hopefully receive some Cy Young consideration come awards season.

The advanced metrics look very kindly on Nola. He places among the top four NL pitchers in all three types of WAR. He is top three in every ERA estimator stat — xERA, FIP, xFIP, SIERA, DRA, and cFIP — and is ahead of every major Cy Young candidate in at least one of those metrics.

Nola is having a great year according to plenty of traditional statistics too. He has the best walk rate and the best strikeout-to-walk ratio in the league. He is third in the NL in innings pitched while averaging 6.2 IP per start.

There are many talented starting pitchers in the National League, but Aaron Nola is up there with the best of them. With the exceptions of perhaps Sandy Alcantara and Corbin Burnes, no NL pitcher has been definitively better than Nola this season.

However, if the 29-year-old right-hander really wants to contend with the likes of Alcantara and Burnes for the coveted pitching prize, there is one thing he must do first: get his ERA below 3.00.

It may sound arbitrary — because it is — but unfortunately, it’s very hard to win the NL Cy Young with an ERA that starts with three. The last pitcher to do so was Brandon Webb in 2006, and the voting criteria has changed a lot since then.

Nola’s earned run average currently sits at 3.07. That’s a very respectable number and would be the second best he’s ever posted in a season. Even so, it would look a lot more impressive if it were just eight ticks lower.

There would have been a time when Nola’s 8-9 record would have gotten in the way of his Cy Young case. Thankfully, voters don’t pay much attention to wins and losses these days. They do, however, still put a lot of stock in ERA.

Nola has allowed 52 earned runs in 152.2 IP this year. He must pitch four more scoreless innings to get his ERA at 2.99. Then he must keep it there. That’s certainly doable, especially with how well he’s been performing lately and how much better Philadelphia’s defense has been.

By the end of his next start, Nola’s Cy Young odds could skyrocket as long as he doesn’t allow more than one run to cross the plate.

The Phillies ace has some great numbers, and he’s been one of the best pitchers in the NL this season. Even so, if he wants to enter the Cy Young conversation, he must start by getting his ERA down below three. Nola has plenty of time to do that, but the sooner he does so, the sooner the voters will really start to consider his case.