Say hey, baseball: Padres still talking Cole Hamels trade

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The Padres have a rotation’s worth of starting pitchers with a few extra options beyond that, but they could still use Cole Hamels. The back-end of the rotation has promise, but there are enough concerns about performance and health from the likes of Robbie Erlin, Josh Johnson, Brandon Morrow, Casey Kelly, and Cory Luebke, and with good reason: they’ve all missed significant time with injury recently, been terrible recently, or both. Adding Hamels to the mix give them a legitimate ace and makes them rely that much less on this group since only one success needs to come from it, and that’s why we find the Padres still talking to the Phillies about acquiring the lefty.

Originally, the Phillies wanted Wil Myers as the centerpiece of a Hamels’ deal, but that wasn’t going to happen. Jon Heyman reports that the conversation has turned to a prospect package, of which the Padres can still manage even with all of the deals they have made this offseason, but it’s worth pointing out that nothing is close yet and the Padres aren’t alone in this. The Red Sox are still interested, though, the Padres’ interest likely diminishes their ability to get the deal they would want, and the Cardinals have reportedly jumped in on both Hamels and David Price in their search for one more reliable starter.

It’s still unclear if Hamels will even be moved, but the Padres aren’t one of the teams on his no-trade list, so the Phillies don’t need to get his permission to do so. His presence would do much to assuage some of the legitimate concerns about their 2015 chances, and they reportedly have the money to add him right now thanks to the Dodgers’ frontloaded payments for Matt Kemp. There is still a whole lot of offseason left, so we might not know for a while yet.