The Cardinals are down a starter. The Dodgers are down two starters. The Rangers are down three.
The Red Sox? Well, their starters are physically sound, but some days it’s hard to tell.
Meanwhile, healthy ace lefthander Cole Hamels continues to waste pitches for the Phillies. Hamels remains in a seemingly perpetual state of pitching limbo, waiting for a text or call.
His bags have been packed almost a year now. Yet, he remains in Philly.
“He’s dealing with it OK,” reports Hamels’ long-time agent John Boggs. “He knows what the drill is. By now, he’s very accustomed to the drill.”
Hamels, one of baseball’s best pitchers, has been forever on the block, it seems. The Phillies are halfway through their alltime slow selloff, and Hamels is the one player left who has some value beyond his contract. Several teams could use him, yet he remains where he was.
The Phillies need to trade Hamels (1-2, 3.19 so far), and they’ve needed to trade Hamels for weeks or months, it seems. They need to trade him because he is doing them no good, and because he can help a half-dozen teams, or more.
Hamels, 31, has four guaranteed years to go on his $144-million Phillies deal, and one rival GM put it bluntly. “The Phillies won’t win during the length of that contract.”
It’s understandable that Phillies GM Ruben Amaro wants to hit a home run with this trade, as it represents a nice chance to enhance a weak prospect stash. Some are speculating he may feel he needs to win the win trade, as it doesn’t appear the Phillies are winning anything else anytime soon.
And some wonder whether Amaro can win it, at least to the degree he desires. He has asked for top prospects such as center fielder Mookie Betts or catcher Blake Swihart from Boston, any of the Dodgers’ big three of outfielder Joc Pederson, shortstop Corey Seager and pitchers Julio Urias and a Texas-sized package that would include catcher Jorge Alfaro and outfielder Nomar Mazara from the Rangers. (See below for more specifics.)
Yet, so far no one has said yes. Maybe no one ever will.
“I’d give up more for a young less proven pitcher,” one GM said, citing Seattle’s Taijuan Walker as an example. “Maybe (Hamels’ contract) is discounted 15 percent. No one’s going to give up elite talent for that.”
Rival GMs are wondering about the chance Amaro took by taking Hamels into the season. Execs around the game are wondering: What gives? Why is Hamels still there? They wonder almost as much as Hamels himself wonders it. (Amaro declined comment.)
Perhaps it’s as simple as this. Phillies people love their players.
The first hint of it was the bloated contracts they gave them, and maybe now this. Perhaps also they are trying to make amends for past trades gone awry, most notably the trade that sent Cliff Lee out of town to Seattle and netted them next to nothing (before they brought Lee back later as a free agent).
Perhaps Amaro will look good in the end. Other pitchers are blowing out and bowing out, and if anything, the demand would appear to be rising.
“A few things have lined up in the Phillies’ favor,” one rival executive said. “There’s a little bit of a crescendo. And now is the time to act.”
The Hamels deal, while high, is far from unmanageable. In fact, with two years gone, it looks quite fine. He is owed $96 million through 2018. That’s $24 million a year, no worse than the going rate for an ace. He should have value beyond that.
Hamels, in fact, has teed it up for the Phillies.
The nine teams he has on his trade-eligible list are all viable, mostly big-market teams that could have considerable interest. Those teams include the Cardinals, Cubs, Rangers, Dodgers, Angels, Padres and Yankees. He replaced the Red Sox with the Cubs this year, but two people with knowledge of the situation said something could be worked out if a deal could be forged with the Red Sox. And Hamels is said to be willing to consider a few more teams not on his list of nine. Like many others, he sees this as the right time for a trade, apparently.
Amaro, meantime, is telling folks he isn’t being unreasonable. It’s hard to know of course.
But it doesn’t look good that, with the need to rebuild so great, he’s made so few trades. It feels like he’s sitting with the bases empty, and he’s trying to hit a grand slam. He is still also holding Ryan Howard, Jonathan Papelbon and Chase Utley. That doesn’t exactly look like a Royal Flush at this point.
Hamels’ value, on the other hand, still seems pretty decent. The Phillies gambled by going into the season with him, but to it may pay off.
The price doesn’t seem to be going down.
“I don’t think anything has changed with (Amaro),” one rival exec said. “He’s held his ground.”
Here is a rundown of who may be in, and what we know:
1. Red Sox. The offensively-strong Red Sox, which look like they could use an ace, hasn’t refused to relinquish either of the exciting Betts or Swihart, a switch hitter with power, which has apparently halted talks. They won’t, either, according to a person with Red Sox connections, and the Phillies continue to say the package has to start with one of those two players. The Red Sox have other prospects, leading with pitchers Henry Owens, Brian Johnson and Eduardo Rodriguez, outfielder Manny Margot (another player the Phillies are said to have asked about) and outfielder/third baseman Garin Cecchini. If they can’t get Swihart or Betts, one rival exec said, “There are ten good players in Boston’s system, they should just pick any (other) two or three.”
2. Rangers. The Phillies are known to like catcher Alfaro and outfielder Mazara, among others, and they’ve asked for both top prospects. Alfaro has big power and a big arm, and Mazara is also coveted for his power potential. It appears, in fact, that the focus may be on those two players, who are ranked No. 2 and 3 in the Rangers’ system, just behind third baseman Joey Gallo, who has huge power. The Phillies have greater needs at catcher and the outfield, as Cody Asche and Maikel Franco, two of the Phillies’ better young players, are third basemen. The sides have talked, and the Rangers are known as reasonable traders, but so far there’s no sign of anything close. Texas' need may be greater than anyone with Yu Darvish, Derek Holland, Martin Perez and Matt Harrison all out, but the Rangers are hoping to hang in there while they await the returns of Holland, Perez and Harrison, perhaps by July.
3. Cardinals. St. Louis has suggested publicly that it expects to fill its rotational need from within after ace Adam Wainwright suffered a season-ending Achilles injury. And that may be partly because they’ve heard what the Phillies have to say. The Cardinals aren’t a team that’s gone past the $20-million-a-year mark even for its own stars (though they did offer more than that to Albert Pujols). But it may be the price in terms of players that makes this unpalatable for them. Word is, the Phillies are interested in a pitcher, and it’s none other than hard-throwing righthander Carlos Martinez. It isn’t known whether they’ve asked for Martinez, but that’s supposedly a guy they like. If so, that may be a non starter, so to speak.
4. Dodgers. Nobody has been more hurt lately in the rotation than the Dodgers, who’ve lost Brandon McCarthy for the year with a UCL tear, and are waiting and hoping Hyun-Jim Ryu can make it back from spring shoulder trouble (he is expected to throw Tuesday at about 85 percent intensity). The issue with the Dodgers in other dealings is that teams, including the Phillies, ask for one of their big three of outfielder Pederson, shortstop Seager andlefthander Julio Urias, and L.A. has been unwilling to give any of them up – this regime or the previous one. The cash-rich Dodgers obviously can afford to take on Hamels’ contract, but the Phillies are looking mostly for big-time prospects back.
5. Cubs. The Cubs won the claim last August after the waiver deadline but weren’t able to work anything out with the Phillies. Even after signing Jon Lester and Jason Hammel, they were in on Shields. Plus they have the money, and the prospects. However, there hasn’t been much buzz about them lately (word is, there haven’t been any talks, either), but they still make some sense. While they surely wouldn’t part with shortstop Addison Russell or certainly third base wunderkind Kris Bryant, they have plenty more young marketable players, including young shortstop Starlin Castro plus positional prospects Javier Baez, Kyle Schwarber, Albert Almora and others.
The Field: The Yankees have the prospects to make a deal (the Phillies are said to like Luis Severino and Aaron Judge) but don’t seem interested in giving up the best of them. The Tigers, whose specialty is trades, have pulled off some monster deals before, though they haven’t been linked to Hamels. The Padres made what they saw as a strong offer for Hamels but moved on, signing Shields instead.
After going over the possibilities team by team, it seems the Phillies are shooting to start any package with a top-20 prospect, at least. The question now is: Will anyone give in?
“The Dodgers won’t be blink,” one person familiar with their thinking predicted.
Some believe the Phillies are still holding out hope for Boston, which has money, prospects galore, an extremely strong everyday team and the need for a No. 1 or even 2 starting pitcher.
“The Red Sox won’t blink, either,” the person said.
But at some point, something has to give at some point.
Everyone figured Hamels would be gone by now, and he probably should be. He’s been the one front-line starting pitcher available since Shields signed late in the winter with San Diego, and you’d have to think there’s a team out there that could use one of the game’s great pitchers.
Several teams on Hamels’ OK-to-trade list are in need, a few even more now than a few weeks ago. They are mostly big-market teams with resources and prospects. There has to be a deal out there soon for Hamels.
If the time wasn’t right earlier, it certainly is now.
