Phillies: Most impactful trade made with every team

Texas Rangers: Cole Hamels

"On July 31, 2015, the Philadelphia Phillies traded Jake Diekman, Cole Hamels and cash to the Texas Rangers for Jorge Alfaro, Alec Asher, Jerad Eickhoff, Matt Harrison, Jake Thompson and Nick Williams."

Outside of Cole Hamels‘ miraculous no-hitter on his final start in red pinstripes, the 2015 Phillies season was filled with disappointment. The team’s 99 losses were their most since losing as many in 1969; it was simply time to continue their “rebuild.”

Trading away their 2008 World Series MVP in Hamels did just that, symbolizing a new era in Phillies baseball.

Leading up to the trade, which brought several players including catcher Jorge Alfaro and outfielder Nick Williams to the Phillies’ organization, Hamels had been among the best southpaw starting pitchers in franchise history. Across parts of 10 seasons, half of which the team qualified for the postseason, Hamels had gone 114-90 with a 3.30 ERA, 1,844-492 strikeout-to-walk ratio and 1.145 WHIP over 295 appearances.

His best season came in 2011, during the franchise’s all-time-best 102-win season; Hamels went 14-9 with a. 2.79 ERA and 0.986 WHIP, helping him to a fifth-place Cy Young Award finish.

Hamels will be most remembered, of course, for leading the Phillies’ rotation in the 2008 postseason. He won four of his five starts, including tossing eight shutout innings while allowing just two hits and one walk opposite the Milwaukee Brewers in the NLDS. Hamels went 2-0 with a 1.93 ERA opposite the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NLCS, before shutting down the Tampa Bay Rays in the Fall Classic, going 1-0 with a 2.77 ERA across two starts and 13 innings, including a rain-impacted Game 5.

The left-hander and his wife Heidi may now be a part of the Atlanta Braves family, but they will always be rooted to Philadelphia at heart. Since leaving the Phillies, he has started 88 games for the Texas Rangers, and 39 for the Chicago Cubs. He had signed a one-year pact with the Braves this past offseason, prior to the delay due to COVID-19.

Hamels not only has four All-Star nods, a 2008 World Series trophy and 2015 no-hitter to his credit. In 2014, he and three Phillies relievers combined to toss the first combined no-hitter in Phillies franchise history. Coincidentally, the game was against Hamels’ future team in the Braves.

– Matt Rappa contributed to this report