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Posted at 12:00 PM EST. 

8:05 PM EST. The trade deadline will come and go today. There will be buyers and sellers and we already know that the Mariners are buyers while the Rangers are sellers. That helps us to establish state of mind. A veteran team like the Rangers, that are laboring to begin with, are now being torn down piece by piece and therefore the feeling in the clubhouse can’t be a good one. The Rangers have five wins over their past 14 games. During this current home stand, Texas has been shut out twice in six games. What we especially like is that there was some excitement in Texas over the weekend with the anticipation of Adrian Beltre knocking out his 3000th hit. Beltre delivered and now the excitement level or atmosphere will be much different. One has to question the Rangers motivation level and focus at least for this one game after all that went on this past weekend (players concerned about trade deadline & Beltre getting his 3000th hit).

We now move to the starters. Felix Hernandez versus Cole Hamels used to be a marquee matchup but that’s no longer the case. On paper, Hamels looks like the superior pitcher but under the hood, it is the opposite. Hamels comes in with a 5-1 record and 3.97 while Felix comes in with a 5-4 record and 4.08 ERA. There’s not much ERA separation there but the market will see Hamels 4-0 record at home with a 2.88 ERA and likely bite against Hernandez’s 1-2 road record with a 5.00 ERA. Thing is, we don’t buy ERA’s, we buy skills and in that regard, we’ll take Seattle with Felix going getting a price against Texas with Hamels going 100% of the time.

A flukish hr/f affects Hernandez’s ERA, His xERA of 3.82 points to improvement from 2016’s approach. He’s getting ahead in the count more than in 2016, thus he’s walking far fewer batters. Hernandez has a very good BB/K split of 18/64 in 68 innings. Despite being in his 13th season, Hernandez clocks in at only 32 years with two more years left on his contract, While he’ll continue to contribute, the heyday is over but he’s still serviceable, he’s still effective and he’s still better than Cole Hamels, at least at the moment.

Hamels’ xERA is 4.54. It has gotten progressively worse over the course of the season. Hamels has struck out fewer batters and given up harder contact (37%) in 2017. Hamels has a lousy 41 K’s in 70 innings, which means he’s almost always at the mercy of batting average of batted balls in play. That’s not a comfortable way to pitch at this park. Hamels has been hammered in two of his last three starts and when you break it all down, we don’t see one area in which the Rangers have an edge here. Lastly, with Jonathan Lucroy traded to the Rocks, Hamels will also have to work with a different catcher.

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