High Hopes: A Phillies Podcast - Aaron Nola Talks About Retiring As A Phillie | WIP Morning Show

Episode Date: November 22, 2023

Phillies pitcher Aaron Nola joins the WIP Morning Show to talk about his new contract and what it means to him and his family. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

All right, let's talk to our next guest. Our next guest did a magnificent job for the majority of the postseason for the Phillies this year. Of course, he's had a really terrific career for the Phils. And now with the news over the weekend, has locked up for another seven years, an incredible total of $172 million. He's given us a lot of thrills the last couple of years. We're hoping, obviously, for more for the years to come. Hoping for a World Series championship someday. And we welcome one of

the two Phillies ace pitchers, Aaron Nola. Good morning, Aaron. Good morning, guys. Thanks for having me on this morning. You bet, Aaron. Aaron, our pleasure. Look, let's start with this. Congratulations. And tell us what it feels like, because none of us know what it feels like. You get to sign with the team you wanted to sign with, and as like a little added bonus, you get a guaranteed $172 million. What's that feeling like? It feels great. I think the best feeling is that knowing that nothing's going to change too much and that we don't have to move to a place we don't really know.

We know the city of Philadelphia and around there we know Clearwater and be able to get to go to the complex in the offseason. So I think that's the coolest thing just because we've got a little girl on the way and I think that makes it a lot easier for us. Good for you, Aaron. Hey, Aaron, I'm wondering, in a negotiation like this, the balancing act, I mean, you knew you wanted to stay here. You knew they probably knew that.

But you don't want to tip your hand too much because, you know, you don't want to devalue yourself. You don't want to lose leverage. How did you and your agent sort of balance that tricky reality? I want to be here, but I don't want them to totally know it. How do you balance that in a negotiation? Well, I just think that it's part of free agency, right? It's the totally know it. How do you balance that in a negotiation? Well, I just think that it's part of free agency, right? It's the business of it. I've never been in free agencies. Of course, my first one. And of course, I've been with affiliates my whole career and

it's the only place I've known. So it was definitely different going into free agency for those couple weeks and just kind of exploring and I guess not being a Philly technically after that last game, it was kind of weird. But, you know, I just kind of talked around, and we're just glad we got the deal done early. Obviously, this is the place I wanted to be, and I feel like I have a special relationship with the organization just because i've made so many good relationships here and good memories so far and um we're so close to making that step to win

a world series and everybody in that clubhouse wants to win so um we're right there, and we have a pretty much similar group of guys and probably some better additions coming in this year. So I wanted to stay with this team and try to win one with these guys. Aaron, how much did those guys, you know, the group of guys here, play into your decision to stay? Yeah, I think there's a few things that played into it, but, yeah, the guys definitely played into it but yeah that guys definitely played into it i mean i wouldn't be in this position without my teammates uh the coaches and

a lot of people in the organization um helped me out along the way but the team wise the camaraderie the chemistry that we have that we we have had, it's important. It plays a big part. It played a big part in my decision to come back here, and it plays a big part of decisions, other guys signing here as well. So, I mean, having a good team, having a good team, one, is important, but having guys that you enjoy being around with and enjoy going to battle with every day, it's way more enjoyable. It's being reported that you left money on the table to stay in Philadelphia.

What more can you tell us about that? Yeah, I just didn't feel like we—I didn't really want to prolong the process a lot. Obviously, I wanted to get something done early because we thought it was important for our family too, but it's not really about the highest dollar for me, for our family, rather than it being an importance of being somewhere that we're comfortable in, some place that we're going to enjoy for the next seven years, right? It's not just you're going for a couple years, one or two or three years. You've got another seven years in a place where you want to enjoy it a lot.

So it's definitely the place I enjoy. Aaron Nolley here on WIP. You know, Aaron, as you transition from the negotiation to now the offseason and reflecting back on what was and looking ahead to what will be, I'm curious, your October performance, masterful in three starts, just unbelievable, and then obviously much less effective in the fourth outing, game six of the NLCS. How do you reconcile in your mind this

offseason that got to be a strange dichotomy, and on one hand, you got to be so proud of what you did in those first three. The fourth has to be a massive disappointment. How do you balance that as you then move forward to next year and what you hope will be, you know, an even longer postseason run? Man, I mean, it's a tough loss, of course. But I try to take the positives out of it, right? We get to the NLCS. Obviously, it's hard. But postseason baseball is tough. And to get to

the World Series last year and then this past year get to NLCS, it's a pretty good accomplishment. Obviously, we come up short and it was a tough loss, and we want to get to that World Series. But we've got to keep competing and keep playing our game and try to get to that position again. And we all believe that we can.

We have the team to do it. We have the guys to do it. And we have the team to do it. We have the guys to do it. And we have the city to do it. But I just try to take the positives away and look at what we did all year. But the first step going into this year is to try to win the division this year. Obviously, you've got to get past the Braves attack because they've won the division quite a few times in the past several years.

But, I mean, you take it step by step. And we had a really good year, obviously some ups and downs, but we got to the NLCS, and we just got to make that step again to get back to the World Series. Aaron, I mean, this is a hypothetical, but how tough would it have been for you to put a Braves uniform on? I think any uniform would have been super different.

It would have felt weird for a little while. Just because I spent about nine years over in Philadelphia. That's all I know. I'm just glad I'm back and i get to spend probably the rest of my career here um i feel like in today's age you don't see that too much but i'm very blessed to be able to do that aaron i i always wonder this uh are you allowed to throw snowballs you know like do you look forward to the ability to just like pick anything and anyone off that you so choose like you could just it's almost like a superpower like you grab a hunk of

ice off the ground and you can i'm assuming that you can just tag whatever you want on whatever your target is correct i guess i'm not around to know that much. Well, that's true. Around here, though, you can grab it and use it. What about, like, throwing the balled-up paper in the trash can? Do you always make it? No. No. I'm assuming you're better than I am. That's for sure.

I think the more of that kind of stuff I get is somebody throws me something and I miss it, and they always say, oh, good thing you're're a pitcher so that's a good old-fashioned go-to joke for everybody right Aaron Ola here you know Aaron the regular season obviously was below your typical standard uh pretty significantly below and we we saw and and heard you talk about the late season mechanical adjustments do you believe that those adjustments will propel you into a much better regular season next year? I mean, I'm sure your agent was saying that

to the Phillies in the negotiation. Do you believe it'll be a far different regular season for you next year? Yeah, man, I really hope so, yeah. Late in the season, I felt really good. Made a couple tweaks in mechanics and tried to simplify it a little bit more and i can see the ball um on both sides of the plate when i when i released it which i'm a

field pitcher i'm a c pitcher where i have to see the ball uh all the way to the plate just because i'm not a guy who is high velocity and tries to blow by you so once i was able to do that um i changed a couple things for me it changed um my velocity picked up a little bit every now and again and it was i was able to throw my change up a lot more more consistently which i really didn't have that as consistently as i usually do during the regular season and that's a weapon for me and as a starting pitcher having three pitches is important being able to throw at least three pitches off her strikes is very important and when you don't have that and you have to throw two it's a little bit tougher but yeah hopefully that um that plays out in this regular season coming up. And obviously I'm going to work on that and get with Caleb this off season

and spring training a lot to hone in on those things again. And that's a good thing about coming back. I know all the coaches, staff, worked with Caleb for the past few years. We have a lot of things written down. And, oh, yeah, I'm definitely looking forward to that part. So, you know, and Aaron, you probably covered this in part with what you just said, but I'm curious. A pitcher like Max Scherzer or Justin Verlander,

who just kicked ass in their 30s, do you look at guys like that and say, all right, let me figure out what they did? Granted, different types of pitchers, you know, but let me figure out guys who sailed through their 30s, figure out what they did granted different types of pitchers you know but let me figure out guys who sailed through their 30s figure out what they did and try to emulate that so you can have your 30s be you know like your 20s have been yeah those guys are those guys are uh pretty amazing they they're hall of famers and i feel like they've gotten better the order they've gotten which is the max that uh charlie morton sticks out to me as

well um but yeah i definitely think staying healthy is a big part of all that because you can't you can't even get close to those guys what they do unless you stay healthy um and i think that's the biggest part of once you when you're 30 and later in, you got to start getting injured a little bit more. So I'm going to do everything I can to stay healthy. Do you get proactive with that, Aaron? Do you keep things the same, or do you actually get more aggressive with trying to stem things before they get started? Not really.

I don't try to do anything out of the ordinary. I just kind of stick with a lot of stuff that I've done my whole career. I definitely change a couple things up just because I've gone through that routine stuff early in my career before I got hurt, like doing the same stuff over and over again. It gets boring. over again it gets boring i think when you're when you're 162 game season and you're traveling a lot you're going to the field every day i want to enjoy it so i do things that i enjoy now um obviously with uh with uh you know education of of my body and all our trainers and communication that plays a huge part.

But figuring out things that I enjoy when I get to the field, throwing, working out, a different type of working out, a different type of throwing that day, if I enjoy it, that's what makes it a lot easier for me. Aaron Nolley here on WIP, the longtime Phillies pitcher, and, of course, big-time commitment from the Phillies to Aaron for a number of years to come with the new contract. You know, Aaron, I'm curious, and I know you know this, some of the best athletes in the history of Philadelphia sports have been some of the most criticized. Donovan McNabb comes to mind. Mike

Schmidt certainly comes to mind. You have been criticized at times for being very good, but people say, yeah, but in the end, you know, it didn't go all the way. Does that criticism, when you hear it, does it sting you? Well, I feel like a lot of it comes from social media. I don't even get on social media, so I don't read any of that stuff. But I think it comes from, you know, them seeing us a lot right i mean we've been here uh quite some time and those guys that you mentioned over here for a little while too that's right yeah and it's not like your guy that comes here for one two three or four years um like i've

been here for eight nine years and gonna be here for the next seven so they see a lot of you so they see your ups and downs and your struggles and your successes, your inconsistencies and your consistencies. So they expect a lot out of you. And, of course, we expect a lot out of ourselves. But for myself, it's telling myself it's the reality of baseball, right? You're going to win a lot. You're going to lose a lot.

You're going to have ups and downs. You're going to win a lot. You're going to lose a lot. You're going to have ups and downs. But for me to learn from those downs and to try to plug those in to make the ups better is important. And sticking with the process of enjoying that part of it, playing hard with my teammates and, you know, playing for my teammates and trying to just win the baseball game. I think that is very important for me.

And that's what I try to do every time I get out on the mound. Aaron Nola here with us. Aaron, I want to play some audio for you. I believe you have heard this before, but I want to see if you can confirm that to us. During the postseason, our guy, Joe Conklin, put together a song that honored you and what you were doing there. I want to play a small snippet of it and then get your reaction. We won't let him get away.

Cause we need him for sure. He won't walk out the door. The man fills all our needs. He trusts in the team and the team and he. Birds will be birds, but I Lola song from the Kings. All right, so Aaron, did you hear it in October? And if so, how did it make you feel when you first heard that? Well, first of all, I didn't know what you were playing about because I never heard that first part of the song,

but I heard the last part. I think my mom sent it to my wife and I, and my wife showed it to me. And she kept singing it to me, and it got stuck in my head for so long. I was like, I got to get this song stuck out of my head. You got your own song. It's awesome.

Did anyone catch you singing NOLA? That would be a little arrogant. No, but as my wife, around the house, I would sing it all the time. That's great. Awesome. Aaron, final thing here for you. The new contract in hand, the team's success the last two years, obviously we know what that's been.

The quest for the world championship is real. Does it make you look forward to spring training more, knowing that you have a team with a legitimate World Series chance than, let's say, five years ago when, let's be real, 500 for the team was a maybe 500. Do you look forward to spring training more when you know you can win the title? Without a doubt. Without a doubt.

I've been through, as you all know, I've been through the rebuilding era with these guys, with the Phillies, all the way up until the team that we are now that we've been the past couple years. And to walk in that clubhouse in spring training and see the guys that you made, made it to the world series with, made it to the NFCS with, uh, everybody's got that one thing on their mind and you know it. And we know that we can, we can pull it out. Um, obviously, hopefully this coming season,

but it's definitely a different approach when I walk into the clubhouse now than I used to. So it makes it a lot more fun. Everybody's goal is one goal because they believe that we can get back to that position and put a ring on our finger. Aaron, congratulations on the deal, the thrills you gave. Obviously, so many millions here in the area this past season, particularly in October. And we look forward

to seeing you in spring training and next season back here in Philadelphia. Thanks, Aaron. Awesome. Thanks, guys. Thanks for having me. Happy Thanksgiving to you as well,

to you and your family. Yeah, happy Thanksgiving to you all too. Thank you. All right. Thank you. There he is, Phillies pitcher Aaron Nola.

All right.