Cole Hamels’ No-Hitter and Pitcher Game Scores in the Game Before Being Traded

With the trade deadline approaching (ed. note: so long!), we have players donning their current affiliation’s uniforms for a final game.  Aside from a few tears shed by baseball’s infantile devotees (ages 3 and up), these will be business-like transactions; it’s the buying and selling of goods.

For this article, we’ll be looking at pitcher performances in their final game before being traded.   The last game a pitcher pitches for a team is a relatively inconsequential event.  What I mean is that teams searching for that piece to propel their momentum in the efforts of a playoff push know what Cole Hamels is worth.  His value did not take a significant ding after two abysmal starts when he totaled 6.1 IP, 20 H, 14 ER, and 5 K (July 10th and 19th), and neither did it skyrocket after his performance on Saturday.  You know what happened, but let me recap: In his last outing for the Philadelphia Phillies, Hamels threw a no-hitter against the Cubs – the very team who he could have ended up with.  That’s probably already a better idea for an article – pitchers that were traded to the team they just faced – but I’ve started the research for the article I’m currently writing, an article that, much like my night, is, for lack of a better word, aimless.  My one year old son is asleep, my wife went to a birthday dinner, I’m in my underwear watching X-Men 2: X-Men United (for the umpteenth time), drinking Diet Hansen’s Tangerine Lime, and thinking about Hamels’ almost 100-point game score in what was his last game as a Phillie.

For the purpose of this article, but mainly to eventually get some sleep tonight, we’re going to limit the research to this current decade (2010 being the starting point), and for pitchers that went to teams that made the playoffs only.  Cole Hamels’ no-hitter scored a 98 on Bill James’ game score calculation, with the only two blemishes keeping it from being a nice even 100, being the two walks he issued over the 9 IP.  There have been two pitchers traded already, Scott Kazmir and Johnny Cueto, and they each posted game scores north of 70 (73 and 78 respectively).  The starting pitcher talent level that could swap hands this year is pretty special.  It’s hard to remember the last time there was a talent pool this deep or when there were this many teams in viable contention to make playoff pushes, so it’s no surprise that we’ve seen a couple of really, really well-pitched games.  But in terms of single-game performances, how good is a game score of even Kazmir’s 73 in the final game before a player gets swapped?  You’d have to go back to 2010 to find a game score as high as 70, which was what Cliff Lee scored for the Mariners after dominating the Tigers over 8 IP.  (Zack Greinke had a 72 before he was traded to the Angels in 2012, but they didn’t make the playoffs.)

Below you’ll find a table with players that were traded close to the deadline to teams that made the playoffs from 2010 – 2014.  Next to their name you’ll find the game score of their last game pitched with the team that traded them (organized by game score) compared to the average game scores they posted with the team that traded them and the team they were traded to.  It’s highly likely that, with so much going on tonight – X-Men just ended – I missed one or two or three starting pitchers.  ((Also spoiler alert (Not about X-Men which I’ve seen close to 100 times now): There are no correlations between that one game score and their value for the rest of the season because a pitcher is the pitcher they’ve been for the body of their work)).

(Game Score Equation courtesy of Bill James: 50 + (outs recorded) + (2*IP after 4th inning) + (1*K) – (2*H) – (4*ER) – (2*Unearned Runs) – (1*BB) = Game Score)

**GmScA = Game Score Average

Player	Date/Opp	Game Score	GmScA Before Trade	GmScA After Trade
Cliff Lee	07-04-10/DET	70	65.1	56.3
Ricky Nolasco	07-03-13/ATL	64	53.1	53.4
Paul Maholm	07-29-12/STL	63	52.6	55.1
Jason Hammel	07-04-14/WSH	59	59.6	49.9
Anibal Sanchez	07-22-12/PIT	59	53.5	51.7
Jon Lester	07-25-14/TBR	58	60.3	61.7
Jake Peavy	07-25-13/DET	57	53.8	54.0
Ryan Dempster	07-25-12/PIT	56	60.9	48.3
Doug Fister	07-26-11/NYY	56	55.3	64.0
Edwin Jackson	07-24-11/CLE	54	51.2	50.1
David Price	07-30-14/MIL	53	61.5	58.2
John Lackey	07-26-14/TBR	51	54.5	49.3
Jake Peavy	07-22-14/TOR	41	49.1	59.8
Jeff Samardzija	06-28-14/WSH	37	57.2	60.6
Roy Oswalt	07-24-10/CIN	27	57.6	66.3
Justin Masterson	07-07-14/NYY	22	45.5	40.2
Edinson Volquez	08-23-13/CHC	18	43.4	51.8
Joe Saunders	08-20-12/MIA	3	49.4	50.7
Average		47.2	54.6	54.5

I know that 18 games is a small sample size, but 47.2 is a pretty sizable drop from averages of 54.6 and 54.5.  Perhaps it’s the uncertainty that these players are facing with the looming trade deadline that causes a dip in performance, or perhaps this is a silly, SILLY thing to look into and it means absolutely nothing!!!

But back to this year’s impressive pool of starting pitchers that were rumored to be available.  Let’s say all the top pitchers that are thought to be moving have thrown their last game for their respective teams.  Here’s a look at a table just like the one above but for the pitchers thought to be moving this year.  (This is assuming the caveats that all the players have pitched their final game for their respective teams and that they will all be traded to or have been traded to teams that will make the playoffs).

Player (Traded to)	Date/Opp	Game Score	GmScA before trade
Cole Hamels (Rangers)	07-25/CHC	98	55.3
Johnny Cueto (Royals)	07-25/COL	78	62.1
Mike Leake	07-28/STL	76	55.0
Scott Kazmir (Astros)	07-18/MIN	73	60.3
Jeff Samardzija	07-28/CWS	54	54.3
David Price	07-28/TBR	40	60.3
Mat Latos (Dodgers)	07-26/SDP	49	51.3
Average		66.9	56.9

That’s a lot of 70s.  There are also three pitchers in this group with average game scores of over 60, which is one more than the number of pitchers that went to playoff bound teams from 2010 – 2014.  After all this, I wish there was a way to make this post more interesting, or show some correlation between any of these numbers, but there’s simply not!  It was a thought and I ran with it.  One game does not make a player, but I think in some TINY way, it is another example of what we know to be true:  there is some serious talent that’s about to switch hands – get excited.