Phillies waiting to embrace potential trade partner as a lover

As more teams arise as contenders and their pitchers continue to explode, there will be a market for Cole Hamels. Hamels basically is the market of top pitching acquisitions, a fact of which he is reminded upon traveling to any major American city. Arriving in St. Louis for a recent series with the Cardinals, Hamels remarked how much he liked Busch Stadium, and it took little more than the offhand compliment to set off speculation.

Hamels pitched in St. Louis last week and told reporters how much he liked the vibe at Busch Stadium, a good pitchers' ballpark. Hamels didn't bite on whether he would mind being traded to St Louis...

--Nick Cafardo, Boston Globe

Would Hamels mind being traded to a better team in every sense of the sport? No, he would not mind that. He knows that, the reporters know that, and the Phillies and Cardinals know that, but nobody says it because this is the complex, highly sensual dance we dance at this phase of the Cole Hamels sweeptstakes.

Just because there are edicts in place to get people to shut the hell up about Cole Hamels trades doesn't mean the Phillies aren't thinking about it, however. Cafardo says the Phillies are "waiting with open arms" for a trade partner interested in Hamels, probably on a windswept seaside dock during a gathering storm, their hair beginning to flail as they stare down a grim horizon.

With Blake Swihart and Mookie Betts fantasies of the past, the Phillies have moved on to other potential trade targets in the Boston system, and Boston has moved on to not wanting to trade any of them, either.

The Red Sox "may not be willing to give him up" Manuel Margot, a 20-year-old center fielder who has never played above High A ball in a potential deal, says Cafardo. If true, the Red Sox continue to be the kid who says he wants to trade Pokemon cards, but keeps saying all of his are off limits because he's just stalling until he can to kick you in the back and run away with all of yours. Real classy organization up there.

Meanwhile, the number of teams who could use a talented lefty who becomes even more talented with a real baseball team behind him continues to grow...