Cubs Acquire Cole Hamels from Rangers

[Eye Black]

The Cubs have traded for LHP Cole Hamels.

 

From MLB Trade Rumors...

 

The Cubs and Rangers are in agreement on a trade that will send Cole Hamels from Texas to Chicago, reports Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News (via Twitter). Multiple reports had indicated that the two sides were making progress on a deal, as was first indicated by Joel Sherman of the New York Post. Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports adds the ever-important caveat that the trade is pending medical reviews

[StearnsFTW]

Meh. Have fun with that Cubs.

[danzig6767]

Helps the Cubs to be rich.

 

They take on 10 million dollars, so they likely give up scraps in return prospect wise.

[pacopete4]

Helps to be rich but sometimes it gets teams into very foolish deals. Their starting rotation is a perfect example of that.

[StearnsFTW]

Another crappy starter. Whatever. Insurance I guess.

[xisxisxis]

They take on 10 million dollars, so they likely give up scraps in return prospect wise.

 

MLBTradeRumors is reporting the Cubs are only assuming $4M of the $14M owed to Hamels...

 

Second year in a row the Cubs add a SP at the trade deadline and the Brewers add RP... Worked well in 2017...

 

 

for the CUBS!

[brooks_quichenick]

Hamels will magically turn into vintage Hamels because the Cubs seem to catch every break lately.

[JosephC]

Impossible! The Cubs had no assets left to trade!

[MoreTrife]

Hamels will magically turn into vintage Hamels because the Cubs seem to catch every break lately.

 

Ugh that's the worry. His numbers are so pedestrian!

[KeithStone53151]

Has anyone heard specifics on the return?

[TooLiveBrew]

Has anyone heard specifics on the return?

 

Sources: #Cubs moving toward a Cole Hamels deal that would be centered around lower-level minor-league prospects and salary relief for #Rangers. Something to monitor: Class-A Myrtle Beach right-hander Rollie Lacy was scratched from tonight’s start.

[Eye Black]

Sounds like it is Rollie Lacy and a PTBNL. Unless the PTBNL is someone significant that has the makings of a really underwhelming return for the Rangers.

[MadScientist]

Sounds like it is Rollie Lacy and a PTBNL. Unless the PTBNL is someone significant that has the makings of a really underwhelming return for the Rangers.

Especially since the Cubs aren't taking on much of the salary. Hamels for not much could be expected. Hamels +10M for not much is a poor return. There must have been no interest in Hamels from any other team.

[Fear The Chorizo]

Keep an eye on the ptbnl...likely from a list of intl signees that TX will get to pick from who haven't played long enough to even be considered prospects. One thing the Rangers are good at is scouting and mining intl talent, and the cubs have played heavily in that talent pool in recent years.

[long ball]

Hamels is better than Farrell, but I'm not too worried about the Cubs getting him. Best case he's fine. Worst case he's left off the post season roster.

[danzig6767]

Hamels will magically turn into vintage Hamels because the Cubs seem to catch every break lately.

Ugh that's the worry. His numbers are so pedestrian!

We'll see, but this was in the article

 

The 34-year-old Hamels isn’t the ace that he once was, and he’s had his share of struggles in 2018 — albeit nearly all of them coming at his homer-happy home stadium in Arlington. Hamels is surrendering home runs at a career-worst rate, but it’s somewhat telling that 16 of the 23 round-trippers he’s yielded have come at Globe Life Park. Hamels has a 6.41 ERA, a 6.16 FIP and a 4.49 xFIP when pitching at home this season but a 2.93 ERA, 4.17 FIP and 3.83 xFIP on the road.

[Boomer5]

Solid move by the scrubs. They desperately needed a starter and picked up one on the cheap.

[jjfanec]

Hamels will magically turn into vintage Hamels because the Cubs seem to catch every break lately.

Ugh that's the worry. His numbers are so pedestrian!

We'll see, but this was in the article

 

The 34-year-old Hamels isn’t the ace that he once was, and he’s had his share of struggles in 2018 — albeit nearly all of them coming at his homer-happy home stadium in Arlington. Hamels is surrendering home runs at a career-worst rate, but it’s somewhat telling that 16 of the 23 round-trippers he’s yielded have come at Globe Life Park. Hamels has a 6.41 ERA, a 6.16 FIP and a 4.49 xFIP when pitching at home this season but a 2.93 ERA, 4.17 FIP and 3.83 xFIP on the road.

 

Could it just be that the four other teams in his division play in bottom half of the league hitting parks. Including 3 of the bottom 8? Wrigley is top 10 so what are his numbers more likely to look like? His Texas ones or his road ones?

[monty57]

Impossible! The Cubs had no assets left to trade!

 

Money is an asset

[Eye Black]

If he produces something similar to the results he had over the first 2.5 months of the season he will turn out to be a good rotation addition for the Cubs. If he continues to get hit around like he has over his past 5 starts (including two road starts) he might not last very long (5 GS, 22.0 IP, 37 H, 25 ER).

[Fear The Chorizo]

Sure, Arlington is a very hitter friendly park, but so is Wrigley in the summer. And the reason nobody else was willing to offer anything for hamels is his last month, which has been awful no matter where he is pitching

[homer]

They take on 10 million dollars, so they likely give up scraps in return prospect wise.

 

MLBTradeRumors is reporting the Cubs are only assuming $4M of the $14M owed to Hamels...

 

Second year in a row the Cubs add a SP at the trade deadline and the Brewers add RP... Worked well in 2017...

 

 

for the CUBS!

 

Trade deadline passed already?

[A Swing and A Drive]

Love how we try to rationalize that all the Cubs moves are terrible.

 

They basically gave up nothing and acquired Hamels to be their 5th starter.

 

They will have Lester, Darvish, Quintana, Hendricks and Hamels for the playoffs.

 

All 5 pitchers are arguably better than any of our current starters.

[Fear The Chorizo]

No team uses a 5 man rotation for the playoffs

 

Based on this year's stats, only Lester is actually performing better than most of the 2018 Brewer starters

 

Darvish may not be on the mound anytime soon due to a lingering triceps issue that is most likely UCL-related. And he stunk before getting hurt, too.

 

They don't get Hamels if any other team actually wanted his combination of contract cost and performance - I think that's the main point. The Cubs shelled out two large contracts to starting pitching this past offseason, made a trade that sent arguably the best prospect in baseball to the White Sox to acquire Quintana last trade deadline, and paid a kings' ransom to bring in Lester a few years' earlier - they still have an average at best starting rotation, and it's forced them to keep bringing in more arms because minor league options don't exist for them to make starts.

[jjfanec]

Love how we try to rationalize that all the Cubs moves are terrible.

 

They basically gave up nothing and acquired Hamels to be their 5th starter.

 

They will have Lester, Darvish, Quintana, Hendricks and Hamels for the playoffs.

 

All 5 pitchers are arguably better than any of our current starters.

 

It is not just that it is a Cubs move. Look at the Hamels thread in the trade forum. No one really wanted him. He just isnt that good.

 

You can say all 5 of those pitchers are arguably better than ours but one hasnt pitched for a long time and was bad before he did. Chacin, Peralta, Chase, Miley and Guerra all have a better era than anyone not named Jon Lester - actually Miley is better than Lester but that seems unlikely to stick. You can argue on past results that the Cubs rotation is better but not on what they have done so far this year. Again all 5 of the Brewers starters have put up better numbers than the Cubs 2-5. Actually almost all the pitchers suffer the same problem of not being able to go deep in games - all in the 5 1/3 to 6 category.

 

This isnt spin it is just facts. Obviously it is only ERA (and K/9 and WHIP if you want to look at that those too) but the stats show the rotations are fairly equal