The Phillies’ rotation has been a strength for years, but its success in 2026 is far from guaranteed.
Right-hander Aaron Nola had a disappointing 2025, missing nearly half the season due to injury and posting a career-high 6.01 ERA in 17 starts. Given the uncertainty around the Phillies’ rotation, a bounce-back year from Nola would go a long way towards pitching stability in Philadelphia.
Here are four things Nola must do in 2026 to set himself — and his club — up for success this season.
Durability hasn’t typically been a problem for Nola, whose 268 starts from 2015 (his debut season) to 2024 are the fourth most of any pitcher. But in 2025, a lengthy injury absence made a major impact on Nola’s season.
The right-hander was first placed on the injured list May 15 with a right ankle sprain but developed a stress fracture in one of his right ribs while rehabbing the original injury. Nola returned to the mound Aug. 17 after missing more than three months, and he wasn’t great after coming back: Nola had a 6.16 ERA before his IL stint and a 5.84 ERA after it.
Before 2025, Nola’s previous non-COVID-19-related IL placement was in early 2017. He had averaged 3.6 Baseball-Reference WAR per year in his first 10 seasons before a -0.3 WAR mark in his shortened 2025 campaign. Nola is fully recovered heading into 2026, and with a lack of injury history should bode well for him in terms of a healthier campaign.
Nola’s knuckle curve has long been his most effective pitch, but his four-seam fastball is a crucial part of his repertoire. In 2025, Nola’s struggles with his four-seamer were a major part of his uncharacteristic down year.
Nola had a -2 pitcher run value in 95 plate appearances ending in his four-seamer in 2025, significantly worse than the +9 run value he posted on the pitch in 2024.
Nola’s four-seam fastball, 2024 vs. 2025
Average velocity: 92.5 mph in ’24, 91.9 mph in ’25
Batting average: .167 in ’24, .230 in ’25
Slugging percentage: .316 in ’24, .529 in ’25
Expected wOBA: .283 in ’24, .335 in ’25
Nola also missed bats at a much lower rate with the pitch in 2025, with his 13.9% four-seamer whiff rate not much more than half of his 23.0% mark in 2024. Batters hit the pitch a good deal harder in 2025 (91.1 mph average exit velocity) than in 2024 (89.8 mph), too.
Despite its low velocity, Nola’s fastball has typically been hard to square up, thanks in part to above-average horizontal break (which was, surprisingly, better in 2025 than in 2024). If the veteran righty can get back to missing bats with the pitch, it’ll go a long way toward recapturing his All-Star form.
Keep the ball on the ground
Nola has long had trouble keeping the ball in the yard, an issue magnified in his starts at homer-friendly Citizens Bank Park. He allowed 32 home runs in 2023, a National League-high 30 in 2024 and 18 in just 94 1/3 innings in 2025. That’s 1.72 dingers allowed per nine innings, the 10th-highest rate among the 143 pitchers to complete 90 or more innings in 2025.
Obviously, it’s a concerning trend for Nola, who’s entering his age-33 season in 2026. His ground-ball rate, consistently above 50% from 2016-19, dipped to its second-lowest rate of Nola’s career in 2025 (42.9). And his pulled airball rate was a career-high 22.9%, tied for the 46th highest of 349 qualifying pitchers in 2025 (87th percentile). In fact, only six qualifying pitchers allowed more pulled contact than Nola (48.4%) in 2025.
If Nola can roll more ground balls — particularly with his four-seamer and cutter, which had high launch angles in 2025 — and avoid the homers that have hurt him greatly in recent seasons, he can pitch deeper into games and could significantly improve his ERA in 2026.
It wasn’t just homers that plagued Nola in 2025. In spite of an excellent 33.5% chase rate that put him in MLB’s 93rd percentile, Nola was hit hard when opponents managed to square him up.
Last season, Nola posted career-worst marks in barrel rate (9.1%), average exit velocity (89.4 mph) and hard-hit rate (43.3%). Prior to 2025, Nola had never had a hard-hit rate above 40%, and his last season ranking below the 50th percentile in the Majors in that metric was 2020 (45th percentile).
Addressing this issue goes hand in hand with improving his four-seam fastball and inducing more ground balls, but Nola will have to miss more barrels in 2026 to have the bounce-back season the Phillies need from him.
