Hamels trade or contract rumors heat up Hot Stove season

Hamels is expecting a big payday but will it be with the Phillies?

It's the rumor mill that has just started to kick into overdrive. It's MLB trade deadline as the end of July is approaching in rapid fashion.

Some of the Phillies that are rumored to be in the trade deadline are also some of the members of the team that have made some great contributions such as Cole Hamels and Shane Victorino. Another more recent name to surface is Jimmy Rollins, which is a bit strange as the Phillies just resigned him in the off-season last year.

Various sources have also placed the Phillies with making offers to Cole Hamels with various dollar amounts and length of contract deals reported. Most of these 'reports' are false. We won't know any of the real offers until either an offer is accepted or something official slips out from well placed sources, none of those things have really happened yet, so it's all conjecture at this time.

One reported story though has received a lot of coverage, such as here on MLB Traderumors.com. The supposed deal has Hamels offered a 6 year contract at $130M, which is no small amount, but far from the amount that had been thrown around that Hamels wants 7 years at over $150M. I wouldn't advise the Phils to do a six year deal or a seven year deal with Hamels. The price is too high, he is a really good pitcher but not one that should command that much for so long.


Cole is very good, but should a pitcher who has never won 20 games in a season take home $20M plus per season?

Year	Age	Tm	Lg	W	L	W-L%	ERA	IP	Awards
2006	22	PHI	NL	9	8	.529	4.08	132.1
2007	23	PHI	NL	15	5	.750	3.39	183.1	AS,CYA-6
2008	24	PHI	NL	14	10	.583	3.09	227.1
2009	25	PHI	NL	10	11	.476	4.32	193.2
2010	26	PHI	NL	12	11	.522	3.06	208.2
2011	27	PHI	NL	14	9	.609	2.79	216.0	AS,CYA-5
2012	28	PHI	NL	11	4	.733	3.07	126.0	AS
7 Yrs				85	58	.594	3.36	1287.1
162 Game Avg.				15	10	.594	3.36	220

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 7/19/2012.