diff --git a/tools/bazeldefs/BUILD b/tools/bazeldefs/BUILD
index ebe90dfec..c2c1287a1 100644
--- a/tools/bazeldefs/BUILD
+++ b/tools/bazeldefs/BUILD
@@ -41,7 +41,7 @@ config_setting(
 genrule(
     name = "version",
     outs = ["version.txt"],
-    cmd = "cat bazel-out/stable-status.txt | grep STABLE_VERSION | cut -d' ' -f2- >$@",
+    cmd = "cat bazel-out/stable-status.txt | grep STABLE_VERSION | cut -d' ' -f2- | sed 's/^[^[:digit:]]*//g' >$@",
     stamp = True,
     visibility = ["//:sandbox"],
 )