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Report: Cole Hamels 'open to a deal with the Red Sox'

It looks like one of the key players in that famous Phillies core - Cole Hamels - could find a home in another market.

With baseball's non-waiver trade deadline consigned to history, the focus of trade rumors now shifts to the offseason. Not surprisingly, the Phillies are already in the spotlight. And it's a safe bet that they will continue to be until Ruben Amaro Jr. realizes quite a few fans are just fine with blowing up the team's core of over-priced, aging veterans.

We wouldn't dare call it a "rebuild," of course, because Phillies president David Montgomery insists that there will be no such thing.

It appears, though, that the team is starting to get to the point of realizing that doing something would be a better idea than doing nothing. Just as importantly, it looks like one of the key players in that famous core is starting to think the same way.

That's the word from Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe, who wrote in Sunday's paper that "Hamels, according to a source close to him, would be open to a deal with the Red Sox."

Cafardo also reports that dealing Hamels would net the Phillies "young players" in return, and that talks for such a  move "may very well heat up this season."

Does that mean a trade will happen? Could the Phillies actually, finally make the kind of big move that would start the process of fixing their problems?

Well, maybe not. For as Cafardo also wrote:

Don't think in 30 years of covering baseball I've ever seen a team (the Phillies) spend so much time scouting another team (the Red Sox) and not pull the trigger on a deal. Even after the trade deadline, the Phillies have had a scout in Boston, St. Louis, and Anaheim watching Boston's young players.

That is so very much like Amaro, isn't it.

Once again, we wait to see if the Phillies have the stomach (to put it politely) to do something that is painful in the short term but likely necessary in the long term.

Do you think it will happen?