He is married now, with two young sons. Cole Hamels now looks like a character from the hit television series, "Madmen," like someone who could sell you anything. Which is kind of what he did when he sat down at a podium in a crowded room yesterday and said he wasn't too concerned about operating for another season on a 1-year deal, that the only hardball he would be playing would be between the white lines and not along the dotted ones.
"I don't have any deadline," he said at one point. "I think the only deadline that is set is by Major League Baseball with 5 days after the World Series."
He has learned, learned the game of baseball, how it works, how to sell. And what he is selling now is that he is a happy camper who would love to be a Phillie for the rest of his career. What he's not telling, at least to his now adoring public, is what his asking price is, or whether he will issue any discounts to get that wish.
But he took $15 million for this season rather than arbitration, because the arbitration process often creates bad feelings between an organization and its homegrown talent. And while he didn't offer a hometown discount yesterday, he most certainly, at times, implied it. Like when he spoke about wanting to stay with a winner, about how awful it would be to "sit in a clubhouse in spring training and know you're already out of it."
"I think that's kind of depressing knowing that you have to play for the next 6 months and you don't really have a shot of winning or you're gonna get traded," he said. "To be here in the Phillies organization, you know you have a shot every single day and I think that's the greatest momentum and motivator you could possibly have."
