The Phillies and 29 other teams are converged to San Diego, California for this year's Winter Meetings. With the rebuilding Phillies expected to make a number of deals this offseason, this seems like prime trading time. However, discussions about their most tradeable asset do not appear to be taking place. At least not yet.
Gordon Edes at ESPN Boston reports:
Major league source insists that the Phillies are not active in trying to move Hamels here.
— Gordon Edes (@GordonEdes) December 9, 2014
This is an encouraging sign that the Phillies are doing this right: waiting for the Jon Lester market to be settled.
One Jon Lester signs with a team, the teams who miss on Lester will turn their attention to other options, and Hamels is at the top of the list. It is easy for teams to say, "I'll just sign an ace as a free agent rather than trade assets" until the time comes where the ace signs elsewhere and they are sitting without one. Then, it's not a matter of signing instead of giving assets; it's having no ace or having an ace. Then those teams will amp up their pursuit.
In the meantime, the Phillies did meet today with the Baltimore Orioles to discuss a Marlon Byrd trade, Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports is reporting. With much of the outfield market already settled, the Phillies' time is better spent working out these types of deals while the Hamels market is cool. Then, ideally, the Phillies will have a Byrd trade completed and they can turn their attention to Hamels once the deal is complete.
