Aaron Nola's $16M Contract Option for 2023 Season Exercised by Phillies

The Philadelphia Phillies exercised Aaron Nola's $16 million option for the 2023 season on Monday.

The move doesn't come as a surprise. While Nola had his ups and downs in the 2022 season as the No. 2 option in the rotation behind Zack Wheeler, he still finished 11-13 with a 3.25 ERA, 0.96 WHIP and 235 strikeouts in 205 innings.

He made five starts during the Phillies' run to the 2022 World Series, winning games in each of the first two rounds. He did take the loss in Game 4 of the World Series, in which the Houston Astros no-hit Philadelphia.

The Astros won the series in six games, putting an end to the Phillies' remarkable postseason run.

The 29-year-old hasn't emerged as the true ace he appeared on track to be after finishing third in the Cy Young Award voting in 2018 (2.37 ERA, 0.97 WHIP, 224 strikeouts in 212.1 innings), his lone All-Star season, but he's also not a player the Phillies would want to lose come free agency.

Inconsistency was the difference between Nola having an excellent and simply good season in 2022. In six Junes games, for instance, he went 3-1 with a 2.51 ERA. But he struggled in August, going 2-3 in five starts with a 4.22 ERA.

Still, Nola misses bats, with 200 or more strikeouts in each of his last four non-COVID-shortened seasons. Keeping him at the $16 million price point and earning another year to work out an extension made total sense for the Phillies as they look to win a World Series around a core of Bryce Harper, Wheeler, Nola, J.T. Realmuto, Kyle Schwarber, Rhys Hoskins and Nick Castellanos.

Other moves will need to follow, namely in a bullpen that was the team's Achilles heel last season, but keeping Nola for at least one more season was a no-brainer.