Hamels Traded To Rangers

Hamels will be fondly remembered for the good times.

A 'bird in the hand' may be 'worth 2 in the bush', but the Phils traded their homegrown premier left-handed ace Cole Hamels for a handful of could-be players on Wednesday. 

The Texas Rangers also get left-handed reliever Jake Diekman in the trade for a group of five prospects.

Top catching prospect Jorge Alfaro, horrendous left-hand pitcher Matt Harrison (6.75 ERA, 1.56 WHIP), outfielder Nick Williams and minor league right-handers Alec Asher, Jerad Eickhoff and Jake Thompson will be shipped to the Phillies.

Harrison is a costly nightmare.  He is owed $26 million over the next two seasons after this year. He has made only nine starts since 2012 because of multiple back surgeries.  His numbers couldn't be worse.  It's likely the Rangers required dumping him and his bloated salary on the Phils to complete the trade, for which the Phils may also owe cash.  That explains why dumping Papelbon's $13 million a year (slightly less than the disastrous Harrison collects; 2015 Salary: $13,200,000) was a prerequisite hours before collecting Harrison.

The best potential net for the Phils in this deal are the trio of catcher Jorge Alfaro, right-hand pitcher Jake Thompson (the Rangers top pitching prospect) and outfielder Nick Williams, who were ranked, respectively, by Baseball America as the Rangers' 3rd, 4th and 5th-best prospects.  However, Alfaro (22) had a season-ending ankle injury last month.

The Phillies had told several teams interested in acquiring Hamels that they'd like to get their "best" offers by Wednesday.

The Phillies had continued to speak with a large number of teams about Hamels, a group known to include the Dodgers, Cubs, Giants, Astros, Diamondbacks, Yankees and Red Sox.

Hamels' next start was scheduled for Thursday against the Braves, the night before the deadline, but that is being pushed back one day until after Friday's 4 p.m. trade deadline has passed.

Hamels threw a season-high 129 pitches in Sunday's no-hitter over the Cubs at Wrigley Field. He is 6-7 with a 3.64 ERA in 20 starts.

Cole 'Hollywood' Hamels, who was rumored to be headed to the Dodgers, will head south instead, to Texas.  The Rangers can hardly be what Hamels wanted.  They have been playing without injured ace Yu Darvish and #2 starter Derek Holland.  They are, consequently 47-52 and on the verge of winning absolutely nothing.

Hamels has said repeatedly that he wants to "win now," while this move will give him only a better chance of winning later.  "I just want to win,'' Hamels said in a February interview. "That's all. That's all any competitor wants.  And I know it's not going to happen here... I want to go to a place where I can win again." 

To complicate matters further, the Rangers are in one of baseball's most competitive divisions, the AL West.  The division leaders are the highly touted, young, deep Astros, who Hamels blocked a trade to, followed closely by the formidable Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.

The 3rd place Rangers can expect to continue looking up at their division foes for the time being, while eyeing a long-shot Wild Card birth as soon as next year.  Hamels, who turns 32 this year and whose ERA and WHIP are as high as they've been in 6 years, can't love those odds to return to postseason glory.

He's gone from a big fish in a small pond to a big fish in a very big pond.

In Philadelphia, he'll be missed and fondly remembered for the good times he helped usher in.

He finishes his Phillies career 114-90 with a 3.30 ERA, 2 All-Star appearances (2007 and 2012) and 7-4 with a 3.09 ERA in the postseason (2007-2011), including 4-0 with a 1.80 ERA in 2008 when the Phils won it all and 1-2 with a 7.58 ERA in 2009 when, without him, they probably would have again. Famously, he became only the 5th player in baseball history to win 2 postseason MVP awards in the same year when he won both NLCS and World Series MVP in his storied 2008 postseason, the Phillies most dominant of all-time.

Hamels was asked in May, 2011 if boos show that a fan cares. “Yeah, they do,” he replied. “That’s the way I see it. Mike Schmidt told me that, when I was younger in the minors. Shoot, he’s probably been the most-booed person in Philly [history], and he’s the best player.”

That appreciation and understanding of Philly fans was a far-cry from Hamels' former claim that Philly fans were, "40% Passionate die-hards, 60% crazy lunatics and fair-weather fans."

"I go for it every game," Hamels said. "I have high expectations of myself. I feel comfortable. I feel I’m meant to be out there."

"I was fortunate enough for the Phillies to draft me, knowing that they were trying to put together a really good team, and now being a member of what they were able to establish is something I can't thank them for enough.”

For more on Hamels, please see: Hamels is King of 4 Aces' Hill.

Phils Salary Dump Papelbon To Nationals

Papelbon won't be missed.  His arm will.

Loud-mouth, big-game all-star closer Jonathan Papelbon finally got the ticket he sought, almost since his arrival in Philly: a one-way exit.

You could fault him for his attitude, his lack of commitment, his failure to even fake allegiance, sportsmanship or teamwork.

However, you couldn't doubt his ability or his performance, because they were rarely lacking-- especially when it counted.

Papelbon often jeered teammates.  It was arrogant and unprofessional.  However, when he criticized the notion in 2013 of all-star selection Yasiel Puig, a player some local writers are calling for in return for Cole Hamels from the Dodgers, Papelbon was as spot-on as he was offensive:

"The guy's got a month, I don't even think he's got a month in the big leagues," Papelbon said then. "Just comparing him to this and that, and saying he's going to make the All-Star team, that's a joke to me.  It's just really what happens in baseball when … to me it really does an injustice to the veteran players that have been in the game for eight-, nine-, 10-plus years. It kind of does them an injustice because they've worked so hard to stay there."

When the Phillies passed on Ryan Madson in 2012 to acquire Papelbon via free agency, it was a startling move.  The Phils had a long, bad history with Madson's then-agent Scott Boras (JD Drew, etc.) and Madson was asking for a lot of money for the four year deal the team and player inked and were on the verge of signing.


Madson in the 8th spelled relief.

Homegrown Madson, who was pivotal during the Phils five-consecutive division title seasons, was an institution in Philly, where he had set-up Brad Lidge and the team's first World Series-winning season since 1980.

However, the Phils dumped Madson at the 11th hour and instead signed Jonathan Papelbon, a controversial mainstay in Boston during a number of celebrated seasons.

Papelbon had come to the Phils to win.  From the moment they signed him, they began to lose with steadily increasing proficiency.

Papelbon, never humble or a team player, began to flap his mouth at everyone around him.  While his comments were often accurate, he was obnoxious and arrogant-- to put it kindly.  It's hard to empathize with the guy making $13 million a year for pitching 1 inning every few days.  The Phils received endless criticism for agreeing to that price precisely when the rest of the league made a philosophical shift from valuing closers at anywhere near that rate.

Just last week, the preeminent Philly newspaper published an article criticizing the Phils for, of all mistakes made the past few years, paying Papelbon to work for them.


Fiery, competitive, arrogant, superb.

He is almost impossible to like.  After all, in addition to his miserable personality and prima donna antics, his big mouth and tendency to point the finger, he happens to have very few clean innings.  In Boston, they had gotten a little tired of his walk 2, allow 2 hits, hit a batter, squeeze out the 9th inning habits, which is part of how the Phils acquired him.

However, to criticize a closer who has probably been the best in the game, overall, during his 4 years with the team is like saying your Rolls Royce is at fault for your traffic tickets.

A glance at last year alone tells the tale.  The Phils lost 89 games last year.  Only 2 teams in the NL were worse than them.  Papelbon?  He recorded 39 saves with a 2.04 ERA and a 0.90 WHIP.  This season the Phils are much worse.  They have the worst record in all of baseball-- by far.  Papelbon, however, is better than he was last year.  He has 17 saves, a 1.59 ERA and a 5.00 strikeout-to-walk ratio for a team that is, sans 1 soon-to-be-former starter, basically a AAA squad.  He was the only Phillies all-star this year.  It was the 6th time he has been selected, the 2nd time with the Phils.

Criticizing him and the team for getting him, which local Philly journalists have and continue to, is baffling.  The fact that Madson went on to not pitch a single game for his next 2 teams (he actually failed to throw a MLB pitch from '12-'14) due to injury only cements what terrific kismet (if not forsight) Amaro Jr. had on that move, which at the time seemed somewhat heartless.

[Madson, by the way, is alive and kicking.  He now pitches for K.C.  This is his first season healthy since he last pitched in MLB for the Phils in '11 and his numbers are outstanding: 1.77 ERA, 0.86 WHIP as set-up man for the Royals, who have the best record in the AL.]

9/14 Alienating fans with this response to boos.

Papelbon, 34-years-old, became the Phils' all-time leader in saves on May 13th of this season with 113.  He was traded Tuesday to the Washington Nationals for Nick Pivetta, a 22-year-old right-hander in Double-A.  In other words, this was a salary dump, plain and simple. 

In 18 postseason appearances, Papelbon has posted a remarkable 1.00 ERA and 0.81 WHIP, while sealing a World Series win.  Not the resume for a rebuilding team.

He will replace the Nationals Drew Storen, who will now be relegated to set-up role, despite his 29 saves, 1.73 ERA and 4.89 strikeout-to-walk ratio.

Storen was the club’s regular closer in 2011, lost the job, was a setup man, then reclaimed the closer role this year, his best-ever in MLB. Storen has a 8.44 ERA in 6 postseasons, the mirror opposite of Papelbon.

Tuesday, the Phils simultaneously shed themselves of a loud mouth and a great piece.  Apparently, you don't need the Rolls Royce when you're living in an outhouse.  Still, it hurts to see the Rolls rolling out of the division rival neighbor's garage every day while you're shoveling manure.