Power Pros Forum

A smart, talented righthander with College World Series experience, ex-LSU Tiger Aaron Nola was drafted by the Phillies in the summer of 2014, and should rise to the team's very top prospect ranks very shortly. He brings a nice, low-90's fastball with great natural sink from a smooth three-quarter arm slot, repeating it effortlessly and commanding both sides of the plate. His changeup might be even better, as he's able to throw it almost anywhere on command, making that fastball seem more frightening than it might look in isolation. His breaking balls aren't as sharp, but assuming the Phillies don't rush him to the Majors (and, really, why should they?) it will have time to catch up to the rest of his game, which is already MLB-caliber.

While Nola doesn’t have the elite fastball most top-10 pitching prospects do, he’s far from a soft-tosser, generally sitting 91-93 mph with the occasional mid-90s offering when he reaches back for more from his low three-quarter arm slot. The pitch plays up because it’s rarely straight – usually offering some sink or run – and his fastball command is already above-average.

Nola’s second best pitch is his curve; a pitch that sometimes gets labeled a slider because it doesn’t have prototypical curveball shape and does offer more bite than your typical yakker. Whatever you call the offering, it’s an above-average one, and he can locate it in the zone to get ahead in counts or bury it as a swing-and-miss pitch. His change is the weakest of his three offerings but it has made progress in his short time as a professional, as the pitch offers deception from his quality arm-speed – there’s just not enough to the pitch to call it a more than a solid-average at this point.

His raw stuff makes Nola a mid-rotation arm, but what gives him a chance to be more than that is his ability to locate everything. The delivery is sort of bizarre – he appears to be double-jointed at the elbow and his arm rotation reminds me of former Cubs closer Henry Roengartner the way it comes through the zone – but he repeats it as well as any young pitcher, and that allows him to throw any pitch at any count. I’d like to see him use the change earlier, but that’s likely a sequencing issue that he doesn’t have control over. He has plus command, and at some point, it might be plus-plus.