Cole Hamels Traded To Rangers, Phillies Get Top Prospects In Return

It turns out that Cole Hamels’s final start after 10 seasons as a Philly was indeed a no-hitter, as he has been traded to the Texas Rangers for a gaggle of prospects. As reported by Jeff Passan and others, here is what the deal looks like:

Rangers Get

SP Cole Hamels ($76.5 million guaranteed left on his contract)

RP Jake Diekman

Cash ( $9.5 million)

Phillies Get

SP Matt Harrison ($28.4 million guaranteed left on his contract)

C Jorge Alfaro (Top-3 prospect within the Rangers organization, consensus top-5o prospect overall)

SP Jake Thompson (Top-5 prospect within the Rangers, top-100 prospect overall in most publications)

OF Nick Williams (71st best prospect in baseball, according to Baseball Prospectus)

SP Alec Asher

SP Jerad Eickhoff

The keys to this trade are, surprisingly, the least sexy parts of it: Matt Harrison and the cash the Phillies are sending to the Rangers. As good of a pitcher as Cole Hamels is, he’s on the wrong side of 30, and hasn’t looked his best this season. Alone he wouldn’t necessarily get enough of a return for the Phillies to restock the farm system that Baseball American ranked 21st. But with the inclusion of Harrison’s albatross of a contract, as well as the $9.5 million in cash, the Rangers were more willing to give up the couple of top prospects that the Phillies coveted.

At 48-52 the Rangers are just four games out of the final AL Wild Card spot, but that belies their true competitiveness, as they’d have to leapfrog six teams to make the playoffs. But Hamels will likely be good for a few seasons yet, and the Rangers held onto the highly coveted Joey Gallo. It looks like a fair trade for both sides, but we’ll only really know in a few years when we find out how good all those prospects the Phillies got are.

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