Safe to say Hamels is our best pitcher since Schilling

Cole Hamels has pitched at least seven innings in each of his first six starts, becoming the first Phillies pitcher to do so since Curt Schilling, who did it 11 times to begin 1998, according to the pre-game notes.

As everyone knows, I love MLB.com’s “Press Pass,” the feature that allows free access to the official pre-game notes for all 30 teams. There's a link to it on the left. These are the same notes given out to beat writers, broadcasters and scouts, but they’re especially useful for sites like this one to flesh out a quick pre-game entry. And by “flesh out” I mean "cut and paste the pre-game entry."

I’ve used just about every team’s notes, and I’ve gotta say, the Phils have one of the best sets available: simple, seamlessly organized, well written, and bursting with timely information. Page 1 is the best part. If you can get around the positive spin, which sweetens the entire document down to the last Durbin, it manages to trap the latest trends into a couple short graphs and put them into a historical perspective, like Hamels and the example above.

In so many words, the Schilling tidbit illustrates what a fine career Hamels has had, and also how long we’ve been deprived of a pitcher this good. In my 30 years, it's gone Steve Carlton, Curt Schilling and Cole Hamels, in equal intervals, basically.

Comments

[mike cunningham]

I'm looking forward to seeing if Jamie Moyer can pitch lights out in honor of his bobblehead night.

If the Flyin Hawaiian can hit a walk-off on Shane Victorino bobble head day... maybe the old man can too!

Certainly the Padres lineup might seem tasty for Moyer. But he has struggled a bit at home this year. So who knows. I'll take a Jamie Moyer Quality Start which I'll define as: 5IP 3ER 4R

[JH2]

I miss lefty.

[Willard Preacher]

I just hope King Cole's "injury pronedness" (made that up) is a thing of the past. Otherwise, all of the innings may not necessarily be a good thing.

Shame on you Jason, no mention of Don Carmen or Tyler Green?

[mike cunningham]

@Jason -- Agreed on both the game notes and hamels.

First, regarding game notes which seem to be the ONLY place to easily keep track of Inherited Runners and Runs allowed. Speaking of that... last night Franzke noted that Romero has yet to "Allow a Run" this year. Which in theory is true. If you look at ER and R. However... my definition would include "Allowing an inherited runner to score." I'm sure somebody is already doing it... but I wish you could see an "ERA" of the bullpen and starters if you didn't "Charge" runs to the previous pitcher. If there is one on out there let me know.

My Dad and I were discussing Hamels merits earlier today. We can't get enough of him. He likes to use the Carlton comparison all the time. Trading their out pitches Slider versus Change up. We both said, we haven't seen the BEST of Hamels yet.

Think about it, Carlton was 27 when he had his great 1972 season. If that team was a .500 team, he would have won 30 games easy. If that Carlton had this offense, he might not have lost one game.

Aside from durability (Carlton had 30 complete games that year, 3 of which went extra innings (1 10inn, 2 11 inn) which won't happen. I can't wait to see what Hamels will peak at. [Note: I'm not saying he will have Carlton like success, all I'm saying is, that we haven't quite seen the Cole Hamels we will tell our great grand kids about 30 years from now]

[mike cunningham]

Regarding Run Support and Carlton. Carlton enjoyed run suport of 3.83 per nine.

Hamels last year had a run support of 5.24

[MG]

Hamels is the best pitcher in terms of stuff here since Schilling but let's see him put up solid years this year and next before begin comparing him to Lefty and Schilling.

The list of littered "aces" thoug for the Phils just even the past 20 years is quite lengthy if you count the guys who flamed out or just never panned out. Tyler Green is probably one of the more notable examples but there are really plenty.

[ae]

hopefully Hamels can keep the gopherball tendencies down, because that's the one real criticism you can make of him at this point. 25 HR in 183 innings last year isn't real good, although he's been better so far in '08.

[mike cunningham]

@MG -- agreed you have to "wait" this one out. HOWEVER, Hamels has already surpassed the Tyler Greens, Mike Mimbs, Randy Wolfs etc... of the world.

[mike cunningham]

@ae -- agreed. The homers have to come down. Fortunately, most have been in the solo shot variety.

It's interesting to see his home and away splits. He only has given up 2 more homers at home than away. (Although the ration per 9 is slightly higher)
1.3 HR per 9 at home.
1.1 HR per 9 away.

In his short career:

Home 25HR 3.30 ERA .664 opponent OPS 44BB 166K 171.2 IP
Away 23HR 3.80 ERA .719 opponent OPS 61BB 192K 187.1 IP

[Bob]

Cole has surpassed my high hopes from the potential he showed in that game a couple of years ago which was his first ML start against Cincinati (I believe).

Needs a little maturing, but he seems to have really developed the capacity to pitch through bad patches and keep his team in the game. While at the same time I would like to see him continue to mature, there is a part of me that likes it that he cares so much and wears it on his sleeve. That was a really disgusted look on his face when he gave up that cheesy home run to Hairston last night. It basically said, "I screwed up and let you beat me by throwing a bad pitch. It won't happen again." I guess there is plenty of time for him to develop the iceman facade as he goes along. Maybe he can be a Philly guy with all that raw emotion.

Burt, I saw the Victorino quote also and I had the same quick gut reaction you did to it. Hopefully Charlie is talking to both these guys and keeping everyone's heads screwed on straight?

[clout]

Carlton's out pitch was his devastating slide, Schilling's his rising 4-seam fastball and Hamels his changeup. But there was one thing each of them had in common --Superb command: The ability to throw quality strikes on the edges of the zone.

[dajafi]

The thing about Hamels' HR rate is that it's the unpleasant side effect of his low BB rate. When you're almost always around the plate, good hitters (and in OFJOAB, not-so-good hitters) will take you out of the yard at times.

My fear with Hamels has been that he'd start to nibble after giving up a few bombs. But that's pretty obviously not happening; the kid is the good kind of arrogant, in that he can't believe the last guy got one and he damn well knows the next guy has no chance.

Schilling allowed quite a few homers too, as did (albeit way before my time) Robin Roberts. Both those guys were still pretty good.

[jobbers]

Still no Vic

Werth CF
Brunlett SS
Utley 2B
Howard 1B
Burrell LF
Jenkins RF
Felix 3B
Coste C
Moyer P

[Steve Jeltz]

Why is Coste hitting 8th?

From now on, I'm just going to copy and paste that comment in after the lineups are posted.

[MG]

I finally had a chance to see the Costas thing Buzz Bissinger. Bissinger is a really talented writer and brought up some valid criticism of blogs.

What made me angry though about the whole thing was the way that Bissinger made gross generalizations without a single point of solid data to back up his assertions. There are plenty of sources though that have started to gather good research on who is creating blogs and how they are being utilized. Bissinger was just too lazy to do any research on his own to back up his assertions.

How is this any different than Bissinger's main criticism of blogs that they don't have "integrity" (whatever that means) or do factual reporting? Isn't this just being a bit hypocritical.

[clout]

Jeltz: Batting Coste behind Feliz vs. a RHP makes no sense on any level.

[ajc1]

Uts!