Cole Hamels

Cole Hamels had a brilliant career which was mostly spent with the Phillies, but his brief tenure with the Cubs is worth remembering.

Cole Hamels is rightfully best remembered for his brilliance with the Philadelphia Phillies, where he played parts of ten MLB seasons and accrued 42.0 bWAR. Philadelphia selected him 17th overall in the 2002 MLB Draft, and he would eventually make his big league debut in 2006. He racked up three All-Star appearances and four top-eight finishes in Cy Young voting, and he was notably the NLCS and World Series MVP when the Phillies won it all in 2008.

Hamels was also one-fourth of the Phillies' vaunted "doomsday rotation," featuring Hall of Famer Roy Halladay, Cy Young winner Cliff Lee, and three-time All-Star Roy Oswalt. "The Four Aces," as they liked to be called, didn't quite make the splash they hoped to, losing to the Cardinals in Game 5 of the NLDS in 2011. Still, the team won a franchise-best 102 games, with the rotation leading the league in wins (76), strikeouts (935), walks (221), and quality starts (108), while Hamels, Halladay, and Lee all finished top-five in Cy Young voting.

Hamels stuck around the longest of that quartet, making it all the way to the 2015 season with the franchise that drafted him. In what would prove to be his final start with the Phillies, the 6'4" lefty no-hit the Cubs at Wrigley Field. It was the first no-hitter against the Cubs since   Sandy Koufax ' s perfect game in 1965 and the first at Wrigley since the Cubs' Milt Pappas threw a no-no in 1972.

Luckily for Chicago, the next time Hamels would pitch at Wrigley would be in their uniform. After being traded to the Texas Rangers at the 2015 trade deadline and appearing in parts of four seasons for them, the southpaw was shipped to the Cubs in July 2018 in exchange for  Eddie Butler, Rollie Lacy, and Alexander Ovalles. Chicago's manager at the time, Joe Maddon,  was rather familiar with Hamels, who bested his Tampa Bay Rays in the 2008 World Series. "He'd be pretty good," Maddon said after the Cubs acquired him. "I've not liked him for a long time. He's pitched some really big games against teams I've been involved with and done well. He's a great competitor. He's got good stuff, but he competes and knows what he's doing out there. I'd have to rank him as a pretty competent Major League left-handed pitcher."

The Cubs' rotation at the time was a mess, as Yu Darvish had spent the whole season struggling with injuries, Tyler Chatwood literally could not find the strike zone, and Jose Quintana and Kyle Hendricks were struggling with newfound inconsistencies. Only Jon Lester (a 2018 All-Star) had performed up to expectations, and Hamels was brought in to stabilize the group during a postseason push.

Luckily, Hamels found the fountain of youth upon arriving in Wrigleyville, as he spearheaded the team's charge to a wild card spot. In 76 1/3 innings (12 starts), Hamels logged 2.36 ERA (3.42 FIP), 74 strikeouts, and a deceptively thin 4-3 record. He was worth 2.3 bWAR in those final two months of the season, easily pacing the Cubs in August and September of 2018 (Javier Baéz, who finished second in MVP voting that season, was the only close second). Unfortunately, the team lost to the Colorado Rockies in the single elimination Wild Card Game, though Hamels did his best to keep things close, throwing two scoreless innings in relief.

Over the subsequent offseason, there was quite a bit of drama surrounding Hamels' $20 million club option, though the Cubs chose to quell those rumors and elected to keep him at that price tag for the 2019 season. He wasn't quite the revelation he was when the Cubs first picked him up, but he was still solid for Chicago that campaign, posting a 7–7 record with a 3.81 ERA in 147.2 innings over 27 starts. The team, of course, missed the postseason that year for the first time since 2015, marking the end of Hamels' tenure on the North Side.

After a failed one-year stint with the Atlanta Braves that never got off the ground due to arm and shoulder issues, he made a few comeback attempts with the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres after that, but he could never make it back to the big leagues. He officially retired on August 4, 2023, and the Phillies held a ceremony for him on June 21, 2024, celebrating his career (though they did not retire his #35 jersey).

Notably, Hamels is one of upwards of 18 potential first-year candidates for the 2026 Hall of Fame ballot. Among them, only Ryan Braun and Hamels accrued 40+ WAR, and none of the other sixteen had a "peak" that will deserve enough consideration to stick around on the ballot for long. Of course, Braun himself may struggle to gather much support, as his connection to the PED scandal that swept through baseball in the 2010s will certainly put a damper on what was otherwise a fine career. It's very possible that the big southpaw is the only freshman from next year's class who sticks around on the ballot for more than one year, even if it will likely take him at least a few years to get enough support to make the Hall (if he does at all).