Red Sox may be moving on from Cole Hamels
A Cole Hamels-to-the-Red Sox trade is unlikely as Boston has reportedly offered a deal to Jon Lester.
Speculation on Cole Hamels' future this offseason has been rampant, with the two most common theories involving a trade to the Red Sox or Cubs, two clubs with pitching needs and fertile farm systems. Hamels spent part of Wednesday being undervalued by some analysts, who claimed he was not on the same level as his free agent counterparts, Max Scherzer and Jon Lester, which is... debatable.
However, acquiring Hamels would require trading some of their top prospects, and other team's general manager have been saying that as with the previous trade deadline, Ruben Amaro Jr. is once again putting an unreasonably high price tag on his players. With Hamels, though, the high price is warranted; letting his number one pitcher go for one prospect straight up (as Fangraphs suggests) would eclipse Amaro's worst deal to date.
Signing one of the comparable free agent starting pitchers would require no prospects, and cost merely the agreed upon price of Lester or Scherzer's new deal - no compensatory draft pick. Understandably, the Red Sox have reportedly decided to take the route with no Amaro in their way, and sent an offer to Jon Lester's camp, according to the Boston Globe's Nick Cafardo.
Acquiring Lester would be a real slap in the face for the Athletics, who traded their best hitter, Yoenis Cespedes, for Lester at midseason in an attempt to have a mind-shattering rotation for the playoffs, also featuring Jeff Samardzija and Sonny Gray. The A's couldn't even make it out of the Wild Card playoff and seem close to watching the Red Sox get both players involved in the deal.
But it would also remove a team from the Cole Hamels sweepstakes. The Red Sox, with a top farm system, have many exciting young names - outfielder Mookie Betts, catcher Christian Velasquez and pitcher Matt Barnes had been named as particularly interesting to the Phillies. Boston was unlikely to agree to a deal that would send three of the most promising players from their next generation to the Phillies, but also had to understand that the Phillies wouldn't settle for much less in exchange for their top trade chip.
If the Phillies are going to convert Hamels into a handful of prospects, it will happen as the market on frontline starting pitching is slowly set, and if nothing else, Lester's prospective deal would move that forward a bit.