Posted: Tue, Feb. 21, 2012, 3:01 AM | 27comments |

Sam Donnellon: Hamels is the ultimate homegrown talent

Sam Donnellon, Daily News Sports Columnist

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CLEARWATER, Fla. - His hair parts to the side now, neatly trimmed. “Had another kid,” Cole Hamels said as he sat down to discuss his present and future yesterday. “I guess you’ve got to look like a dad.”

The A-list looks are still there, of course. But the silly soul who once complained of needing a chiropractor on the road and got in deep doo-doo for wishing the 2009 season would end before the postseason officially did . . . well, that guy is long gone. “Said a few things too quick,” Hamels said, smiling. “Probably didn’t look at the bigger, broader picture before I said things. It’s just learning the game of baseball, how it works.”

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.”

So what’s it worth to him? And what’s he worth to them? Cliff Lee got a 5-year deal with an option for a sixth that averages out to $20 million a year. Roy Halladay wanted to be in this clubhouse so badly back in 2010 that he acquiesced to the Phillies’ policy of not extending beyond three seasons, a policy they bent by optioning a fourth year for him, and trampled when they signed Lee.

Would Hamels accept a 5-year deal that’s worth $20 million per? Would the Phillies, already with $108.75 million committed to seven players next season, offer it? If Hamels provided any real news yesterday, it was that his agent John Boggs and Ruben Amaro Jr. are continuing negotiations, which sounds like both sides at least believe something can be done now rather than later.

Five years, a sixth option. The Phillies should really try and get this done. This is their guy, a guy who grew up in their system in every sense of the word. Yesterday Hamels even said the scorn he felt from fans during and after the 2009 season was a “blessing in disguise, because it really made me discover who I was . . .

“That was the best steppingstone I could ever have in my career,” Hamels said. “To really dig down deep and work harder, and to go out there and not to really prove to everyone else that I can be better but to prove to myself that I know I’m capable of doing it and this is what it takes in order to do it.”

He is still just 28, 4 years removed from his postseason MVP performances. Many of what were once flaws have become strengths. “Conditioning programs, throwing programs, video watching programs,” said pitching coach Rich Dubee. “He doesn’t leave too much to doubt or to wonder about. I think he’s well-prepared and that’s a credit to Cole . . . taking responsibility for his career.

“Last year he came a long ways not letting flare base hits and stuff disrupt him,” Dubee continued. “He was very, very focused.”

He did this with bone chips bothering his pitching elbow since this time last spring, and a hernia plaguing him as well. Like that rainy October night in 2008 when that unpitchable storm forced him to battle the Rays without his prized changeup, Hamels displayed a mental toughness last season that belies both his good looks and good nature.

That toughness doesn’t evaporate with age. The shell gets thicker, stronger, even harder to penetrate.

Yeah, I know. The Phillies are bubbling near the top of the luxury-tax ceiling already. Hamels would give them four players earning $20 million or more, probably make it impossible or close to it to re-sign Shane Victorino or Hunter Pence when the season ends. Once a Dodgers farmhand, Victorino is one of the great Rule 5 success stories. Pence became an All-Star with the Astros.

Hamels has only worn this one uniform. That means something, too. “Ever since I’ve been here they’ve been able to do a really good job of keeping the guys that they draft,” he said as the session wore down yesterday. “Especially the guys that they like.

“I just hope I’m one of those guys that they like.”