Did Braves avoid $162 million mistake?

Despite losing both Max Fried and Charlie Morton in free agency, the Braves rotation has been incredible in May, leading to a 10-7 record, even while the offense has been anything but consistent. That feels almost improbably given how little money they’ve spent on the group as a whole. Of the Braves starting five, none of them were acquired in free agency, and four of them are homegrown talents.

Alex Anthopoulos has never been a big spender in free agency. He prefers to lock up his own guys to long-term deals that could be seen as team-friendly, and when he does decide to make a splash, it usually comes via trade. The largest free agent contract he’s ever given out was a $65 million deal to Marcell Ozuna, which is chump change considering the current market and the Braves $200+ million payroll.

However, a couple of offseasons ago, Anthopoulos did have his eye on one of the top starting pitchers available on the free agent market, hoping to pluck Aaron Nola away from the Phillies. At the time, Nola was in the prime of his career and one of the few real workhorses remaining in the game. He made at least 27 straight starts in every season since 2017 — outside of the 2020 COVID shortened campaign — and recorded a staggering 30.3 WAR from 2017 to 2023.

Bringing a guy like that to Atlanta to join forces with the likes of Max Fried and Spencer Strider felt like a dream. But while the Braves reportedly offered $162 million over six seasons, the Phillies were not going to allow Aaron Nola to leave to a division rival, eventually inking him to a seven-year contract worth $172 million in total.

It was always going to be difficult to pry Nola out of Philadelphia, and the right-hander proved to be his typical steady presence for the Phillies in the first year of his new deal, recording a 3.57 ERA over a league-leading 33 starts, good for 3.7 WAR. However, that hasn’t been the case to begin 2025. Nola is 1-7 with a gaudy 6.16 ERA through his first nine starts, and his Baseball Savant page is not that of a guy who is in for some severe positive regression

Aaron Nola Advanced Metrics

• 4.95 xERA (19th percentile)
• .284 xBA (13th percentile)
• 91.0 Fastball Velocity (9th percentile)
• 89.7 Average Exit Velocity (44th percentile)
• 35.9 Chase % (95th percentile)
• 25.0 Whiff % (50th percentile)
• 23.6 K % (61st percentile)

Aaron Nola has a lengthy track record of sustained success, finishing inside the top 11 of the NL Cy Young race four times since 2018. So, writing him off after a bad start to one season is a bit premature. He still clearly has some swing-and-miss in his repertoire; however, that fastball velocity continues to creep closer to 90. Not a lot of guys have success in that range, and opponents are hitting .300 and slugging .850 off the pitch.

That’s not exactly a great sign for a guy on the wrong side of 30 and in just the second year of a seven-year, $172 million contract. That’s why these mega-deals, especially for pitchers, are oftentimes bad business. It looks like the Braves might have avoided catastrophe, and that’s something Alex Anthopoulos probably hasn’t gotten enough credit for during his tenure as Atlanta’s general manager.