Ever since we’ve known about Aaron Nola, whom the Phillies selected with the seventh overall pick in the 2014 draft (nearly two years ago to the day), we’ve heard about front-of-the-rotation potential without traditional front-of-the-rotation stuff. Nola’s a righty, and he throws in the low-90s, and so for there to be front-of-the-rotation potential suggests something else. Pitchability, command, deception, feel — whatever non-stuff-related adjectives you want to use, the thought’s been all along that Nola’s possessed it in spades.

Following the draft and half a season of professional ball in 2014, Baseball America’s scouting report declared that “Nola’s hallmark is his stellar command.” Baseball Prospectus noted that Nola “brings a polished three-pitch arsenal, with strong command and solid deception.” Kiley McDaniel’s evaluation included perhaps the strongest description of Nola’s unquantifiable pitching ability, saying he “has an amazing feel to pitch.”

Fast-forward another year and some change, and Nola’s in his second major-league season — first full season — and we’re not only seeing that front-of-the-rotation potential quicker than most expected, but we’re seeing hints of an even higher ceiling than most expected. Through 12 starts, Nola’s averaged 6.5 innings per start with a 2.65 ERA and a 2.73 FIP. He’s been a top-30 starter by RA9-WAR and a top-10 starter by FIP-WAR. He’s been a top-15 starter in strikeout, walk, and ground-ball rate — arguably the three most important traits for any pitcher to possess.

Nola looks like one of baseball’s best young starters and, as expected, he’s doing it without traditional front-of-the-rotation stuff; he’s still right-handed, and the fastball still barely averages 90 mph. That’s not to say he doesn’t have a plus pitch — Jeff Sullivan already called Nola’s curveball the best in baseball — but he’s not dominating hitters in the obvious, easily quantifiable way that many of today’s young flamethrowers do. He’s doing it in a more sneaky kind of way, and that adds an extra layer of intrigue to an already intriguing pitcher.

In Sullivan’s piece, he noted that Nola is running baseball’s lowest rate of in-zone swings, while simultaneously getting a higher-than-average number of swings on pitches out of the zone. It’s not that hitters just aren’t swinging at Nola’s offerings — they’re swinging at the wrong ones. This suggests that batters aren’t feeling comfortable in the box against Nola, in a different kind of way than they’re not comfortable against, say, Noah Syndergaard.

And while the curveball certainly plays a big role in making Nola at-bats unsettling for the hitter, the fastball does its job, too. Nola relies mostly on a two-seam fastball and, due largely to his sidearm release, gets more horizontal break on the pitch than any right-handed starter in baseball. In fact, the pitch’s movement characteristics (and results) this season make it a near-match for Chris Sale’s two-seamer. So Nola’s movement on his primary pitch already make it one-of-a-kind, giving batters something to which they’re not accustomed. But the location to which Nola throws that primary pitch amplifies the effect.

Before I even knew this post would be about Nola, I had FanGraphs database guru Jonah Pemstein run some numbers for me in an attempt to quantify my favorite pitch in baseball. My favorite pitch in baseball, see, is the back-door two-seamer. I can’t say why, for certain — and I find most any back-door pitch aesthetically pleasing — but the two-seamer that’s never in the strike zone until in snaps in toward the hitter and catches the outer edge of the plate at the last second is among the most visually stimulating events in baseball to my brain. So I had Jonah quantify this — any pitch which started outside the zone with enough movement to bring it inside the zone was counted in our spreadsheet.

The leader in this type of fastball — the last-second strike — among all starting pitchers? Aaron Nola. Sale showed up in fifth place. Bartolo Colon showed up in fourth, which makes intuitive sense.

But, there’s Nola. Adding another bullet point to his deception resume. No starting pitcher in baseball starts as many fastballs off the plate, only to bring them over the edge at the last second. His two-seam heat map against right-handed batters is laughable:

He’s got the most horizontal movement on the pitch of any right-handed pitcher, and it lives on the outer-edge of the zone.

So, how does this unique ability manifest itself? The curve manifests itself in getting poor swing decisions. The two-seamer manifests itself in getting no swings. A better way to say no swings would be to simply say called strikes:

Percentage of Fastballs Taken for Strikes Name Fastballs Fastball_CS Fastball_CS% R.A. Dickey 102 41 40.2% Steven Wright 173 60 34.7% Aaron Nola 660 189 28.6% Kyle Hendricks 493 131 26.6% Steven Matz 526 138 26.2% SOURCE: BaseballSavant

We all understand why the first two names on this list aren’t like the others. After Dickey and Wright, though, we’ve got Nola, who leads all non-knuckleballers in percentage of fastballs taken for called-strikes, with a nice little gap over the rest of the field. The curve gets its fair share of called strikes, too, and so perhaps it’s not a surprise that Nola also has the highest overall called strike rate of all pitchers, including all pitches.

It’s worth pointing out, also, that Matz showed up third on our “fastball last-second strikes” spreadsheet, with Hendricks sneaking into the top 10. It’s instinctual that being able to consistently back door or front door a fastball would lead to a higher rate of called strikes; Nola just does it better than anybody.

Here’s Nola’s signature fastball getting J.D. Martinez on a called third strike two weeks ago:

And the grip and arm action that generates all that movement:

And a pretty pitch that froze Derek Norris:

Here’s a fun way to gain a sense of Nola’s command of this pitch, from later in that same game. Here’s a 1-2 two-seamer that Nola threw to Alexei Ramirez:

Nola nailed the glove, but evidently missed just outside. For this pitch to be taken for a called third strike, he’d need to bring it just an inch closer to the plate. So what’d he do? He literally brought it an inch closer to the plate:

That is command.

We already knew that Nola had exceptional deception, command, feel, pitchability — whatever you want to call it. Scouts said it for years, Sullivan found a way to put some numbers to it in last month’s curveball piece, and this is just another way to do that. The curveball makes it so that hitters take bad swings against Nola — hitters’ swing decisions against Nola have been the worst in baseball this year. The back-door two-seamer makes it so that hitters take bad takes against Nola — hitters’ non-swing decisions against Nola have been the worst in baseball this year. Using those two facts, one could reasonably make the argument that no pitcher in baseball has made hitters more uncomfortable than Aaron Nola. He leads the league in making hitters shake their head back to the dugout.

Thanks to Jonah Pemstein for research assistance