The guy I’m most nervous about next season is the guy who could have the biggest impact on the Phillies… Aaron Nola, whose 2016 season ended abruptly with (gasp!) elbow trouble.
If Nola is healthy, he’ll join Vincent Velasquez and Jared Eickhoff to comprise a trifecta of young guns that will allow Phillies GM Matt Klentak to focus on the gaping black-hole that is the team’s offense.
If Nola is healthy, we’ll see the continued development of a Picasso of pitcher; a kid who can alter angles, clip corners and throw more curveballs at you than a politician’s Twitter account.
And if Nola isn’t healthy? Let’s not go there — yet.
Last off-season, it was Velasquez and Eickhoff who were the question marks while Nola, the No. 7 overall pick in the 2014 draft, was the certainty. Oh, how the script has flipped. Velasquez and Eickhoff are top-of-the-rotation pieces while Nola plans (hopes?) to rebound from the achy elbow that wiped out the last two months of the season.
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Through his first 12 starts of 2016, Nola looked like the future Greg Maddux we were sold, racking up a 5-4 record and a 2.65 ERA. After that, boy, did we get a different Nola.
Nola’s June ERA resembled a QB rating (not quite) while opponents hit .430 off of him. After a slew of disastrous starts, he said his arm felt fine, but you didn’t have to be pitching coach Bob McClure to see the kid was ailing. And, by August, Nola’s season was officially over as he went on the disabled list with “low-grade” damage to his ulnar collateral ligament and the flexor tendon in his right elbow and forearm.
UCL damage, even low-grade? All that sounds waaaaaay too foreboding as I still battle the panicked howls in my mind… Future Tommy-John-surgery candidate! Noooo, not Nola! Yet I stay composed to finish this blog.
Last month, it was Nola’s agent, not Nola, who said (per the Inquirer’s Matt Gelb) that he was 100-percent healthy after completing a throwing program in October. And it was Dr. James Andrews — Mr. Tommy John Surgery himself — who recommended bypassing surgery for the cautious approach to Nola’s rehab.
For now, I sigh with relief not! My breath is firmly held until Spring Training. That’s when we will know if the “cautious approach” worked.
If not — and the elbow goes kaput again — we will lose the dream of Nola, Eickhoff, and Velasquez and rely on the Fledgling Arms Corps… Jake Thompson, Zach Eflin, Alec Asher, and Ben Lively.
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Out of the four, Thompson and Lively come with the biggest promise. MLB.com ranked Thompson at No. 55 on the top-100 prospect list before last season, and he got a taste-test of the bigs last season with 10 starts (3-6, 5.70 ERA). Lively went a combined 18-5 at AA and AAA, and was a recipient of the Paul Owens award.
But we’re not at Thompson and Lively yet. We still have Aaron Nola in the rotation. We still have Aaron Nola. Say it one more time… We still have Aaron Nola… for now.