Just another Cole Hamels year for Cole Hamels

Man, I love Cole Hamels. He’s just so amazingly consistent and he gets DIPS theory ...

Phillies starter Cole Hamels pitched six innings and allowed two runs. He struck out six as he reached 200 strikeouts (202) in a season for the third time in his career and the second consecutive season.

“It’s not really a big deal, 300 is probably pretty cool, but you’re probably not going to see that anymore,” Hamels said.

The 2008 World Series MVP finished his season with a 3.60 ERA and an 8-14 record, which is the least amount of wins and the most losses in his career as he received one of the lowest run support averages in the majors.”

Just being able to get 200 innings is ultimately a major goal every season,” Hamels said. “To be able to achieve that I guess is sort of a positive note. I did everything I could that I could affect. That’s ultimately the learning lesson.”

(source)

Hamels is the same pitcher every season. He walks around two batters every nine innings, strikes out eight or nine batters every nine innings, gives up a home run every nine innings. Every year. His ERA is larger in some years, and smaller in others. His ALL-IMPORTANT wins and losses yo-yo up and down: 17-6 one year, 8-14 the next.

But he’s exactly the same pitcher every year.

Everybody worried about Hamels in 2009 because of his 4.32 ERA, but they didn’t understand DIPS.

Everybody lauded Hamels in 2011 because of his 2.79 ERA, but they didn’t understand DIPS.

It’s not really so complicated, though, and Cole Hamels is perhaps our greatest lesson, because he’s the same pitcher every year except for the things he can’t affect. I’m not wild about Hamels’ contract, because seven years is an awful long time for a pitcher and $144 million is an awful lot of money, even these days. But one year in, so far so good.