10 best Angels free agent targets to pursue this offseason

3) Aaron Nola

Aaron Nola is a free agent for the first time after spending the first nine years of his career wearing a Philadelphia Phillies uniform. Nola stuck around in Philadelphia through the good times and bad, and will now get paid like the workhorse he's been throughout most of his career.

After dealing with a couple of injuries at the beginning of his career, Nola has been one of, if not the most durable starting pitchers in all of baseball since 2018. He's made at least 32 starts in every full season since 2018 with at least 180 innings of work (excluding 2020). For reference, one Angels starter since 2018 has reached 180 innings, and that was Andrew Heaney back in 2018.

Nola has finished in the top-seven of the NL Cy Young balloting three times in the last six years including finishing in fourth place in 2022. He had a down year in 2023 posting a 4.46 ERA for Philadelphia, but he still pitched 193.2 innings and had a more respectable 4.03 FIP. Despite the down year, he stepped up in the postseason, posting a 2.35 ERA in his four starts.

He'd give the Angels the reliability of at the very least taking the ball every fifth day and giving the Angels a chance to win. At his best, he can win a Cy Young. He's that good. At just 30 years old Nola should be able to give the Angels many frontline rotation years before he regresses.