Potential free agent Cole Hamels gets $120 million offer from Philadelphia Phillies - MLB Update
As per sources, the Philadelphia Phillies have made the final decision about a contract extension to their recent All-Star starting pitcher Cole Hamels. In this respect, first initiative that they have taken is an offer worth at-least $120 million for five
years. It remains to be seen as to how Hamels will react to it.
As per the reports, the offer is the best the Phillies can afford under the current and future financial constraints they face.
Meanwhile, one can easily state that Hamels will clinch a deal close to $150 million if he invokes free agency. However, in case he does this, he can never blame the Phillies for letting him down, because they have designed the offer after squeezing their
way out of a budget which owes almost similar amount of money to one of their starting pitchers, Cliff Lee.
Furthermore, it will also be a great disappointment for the Phillies fans that want to see him in the club for years.
Moving on, Hamels has talked of his affiliations with the club earlier and has reiterated the desire to stay with them for years. Therefore, refusal from his part now will expose him negatively to the fans.
Meanwhile, before beginning negotiations, it was reported that Hamels was more concerned about duration of the deal. In an attempt to secure himself for around six to seven years, he had made it clear that time-period of the contract will play an important
role.
In this context, one can envisage a possible point of contention between the parties.
However, the fact most of the agreements taking place with regard to starting pitchers in other organisations entail at maximum five years gives one an impression that Hamels may be asking for too much.
Therefore, once Hamels searches around and realises the trend, one can expect that he will discard the idea of free agency in favour of staying with the Phillies.
Furthermore, the organisations are reluctant as they see six-year deal by the New York Mets with their ace Johan Santana not bearing fruits for the team. Certainly, this must have been in minds of the Phillies’ officials as they prepared an offer for Hamels.
Within few days or may be hours, one can expect to hear a response from Hamels on the offer.
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