Cubs Acquire Cole Hamels From Texas Rangers For A Bag Of Balls
Earlier today I made a strong case for the Cubs going after Jacob deGrom. Truth be told I didn’t want deGrom because his name keeps autocorrecting to “legroom” and changing got pretty fucking old 12 hours into me wanting him on my team. So very simply it wasn’t going to workout in the long run.
Fine.
Whatever.
Landing Hamels is classic Jed Hoyer. Jed’s a shark in the water finding a deal when everyone said it couldn’t be done. When people said you couldn’t keep the major league talent. Baez stays. Happ stays. Almora stays. They all stay. I can’t get over how good Jed has been managing all of this.
In return for unnamed prospects, the Cubs get Cole Hamels who is unarguably now the sweetest dude in the Cubs rotation:
Imma fuck yo girl
Cole Hamels does two things really well: grow out his hair and throw plus-plus changeups. Both of those things help in October from a morale and strategic perspective. I also like his postseason experience (98.1 innings) although 92% of those innings came before 2012. So from a relevance perspective, I’m not ready to hang my hat on his 2008-2009 playoff run as anything that sincerely matters outside of him not being a desperate veteran. This isn’t his last chance. It’s just a really, really good opportunity for him to get some mileage out of a very solid career.
Is Hamels a Hall of Famer? 52.4 WAR at this point in his career means you can start the argument, which you’d immediately. To get there, he’d need a remarkably deep run with a World Series team. Maybe have his option picked up. Maybe win a couple championships. Maybe there’s a comeback story in there with his plus-plus changeup and the Cubs’ plus-plus defense leading the way.
Or maybe I’m just downright crazy. I don’t know because I don’t know what to think. Cole Hamels could be awesome. It could also be a disaster because we already have enough below average starting pitchers that get paid more than $13,000,000 a year. Throwing another log on the fire (even tho the Rangers are picking up the lion’s share) would be a bad idea.
Fortunately there’s little expense for the Cubs to make this move so I’m extremely positive there’s little to lose if this doesn’t work. But then again we’re talking about Jed & Co. and he always finds a way to make it work. Go Cubs.