re: I know about as little about baseball as a sports fan can know...

Nola has three good pitches that he can throw for strikes. He has a really good change up (looks to the batter like a fastball but much slower). He has very good command, which means he can throw the ball where he wants to (usually on the edges of the strike zone). He throws a lot of strikes, which means batters have to be aggressive against him and swing early in the count. If they lay off early pitches they'll find themselves down 0-2 in the count and looking at nothing but garbage for the rest of the at bat. That means that Nola gets a lot of quick outs and that keeps his pitch count low.

He certainly has MLB potential and next year if he throws like he has been this year he'll be a first round pick no doubt. Possibly 1st overall. It's hard to predict who will pan out in the bigs but he'll get a chance to play in the minors. If he moves up through the minors then he'll play at the MLB level someday.