What Can Royals Fans Take Away From the Garrett Hampson Signing?

After boosting their pitching staff by acquiring Nick Anderson and Kyle Wright through trades, the Royals made their first “big” free agent signing of the offseason as they signed utility player Garrett Hampson to a one-year deal.

Granted, classifying this move as “big” may be exaggerating a bit.

Hampson was recently non-tendered by the Miami Marlins after a career-best season in which he posted a 101 wRC+ and 0.7 fWAR over 98 games and 252 plate appearances. The Royals were able to get the utility player at a reasonable cost, as Anne Rogers of MLB.com reported that Hampson’s one-year deal would be $2 million, which is not even one million more than what Josh Taylor and Taylor Clarke made this offseason.

So why did the Royals acquire Hampson, who has averaged a career of 70 wRC+ and accumulated a 1.1 fWAR across five seasons and 517 games with the Rockies and one season with the Marlins? And what kind of impact can he have on this roster in 2024?

Let’s take a look at three takeaways from the Royals’ most recent free-agent acquisition.

Hampson Fits the “Royals Way” Mold Defensively And On the Basepaths

Honestly, it’s kind of surprising that Hampson wasn’t a Royals draft pick.

A Colorado third-round pick in the 2016 MLB Draft out of Long Beach State University, Hampson is a swiss-army knife kind of player who can play multiple positions in the infield and outfield. In fact, that kind of versatility is something the Royals have valued in prospects developed within their system over the past decade, as evidenced by multi-position players such as Nick Loftin and Samad Taylor who are currently on the 40-man roster.

Hampson has flashed potential with both his glove and on the basepaths at the Major League level, especially during his time with the Rockies.

In 2021, he was five runs above average and eight outs above average, according to Statcast OAA data. He did take a step back defensively last season in Miami, as evidenced by a -2 OAA overall. However, it appeared that, based on Statcast data, his struggles came more in the infield than in the outfield.

It’s likely that Hampson will mostly play in the outfield in 2024 with the Royals, especially with Kauffman Stadium’s spacious grounds (which mirror Coors Field’s dimensions). So while the negative OAA last year may be concerning, he won’t be playing much shortstop or second base in Kansas City next season (two positions where he rated negatively).

In terms of his abilities on the basepaths, in 147 games in 2021, he stole 17 bases on 24 attempts and produced four “runner runs”, via Savant. Last year, Hampson didn’t snag as many bases (five) but he produced a sprint speed of 29.8 ft/s, which ranked in the 98th percentile of the league.

Over the past two years, Hampson has seen some regression in his overall baserunning runs data. That said, he still has been above the league average in runner runs, according to Savant, as seen in the table below.

It seems that Hampson’s aggression on the basepaths is one of his strongest features as a player, and it’s likely that Colorado and Miami’s more conservative style didn’t really fit into his profile. For context, the Marlins ranked 15th and the Rockies ranked 30th in runner-runs last season, according to Savant.

As for the Royals? They ranked 4th.

Thus, JJ Picollo may have seen Hampson as a low-cost and low-risk utility option who could fit into their baserunning style, and Hampson may have seen Kansas City as an organization that would fully allow him to utilize his strong speed on the basepaths.

Can Hampson Continue to Find BABIP Luck in KC?

Unfortunately, even though the speed and defensive tools have been there, the bat has been questionable.

In his last two seasons in Colorado (2021 and 2022), Hampson produced a wOBA of .288 and .267, respectively. Therefore, it’s not a surprise that Hampson saw his plate appearance number go from 494 in 2021 to 226 in 2022, which eventually led to his departure from the Rocky Mountains.

Hampson has shown pop potential in the past, as he did hit 11 home runs in 2021 with the Rockies. However, his average exit velocity and hard-hit rate data have never been great, even during those 2021 and 2023 seasons when he was at least intriguing at the plate.

Below is a chart comparison between his average exit velocity and hard-hit rate breakdowns over his career, via Savant.

Hampson’s had stretches in his career where his hard-hit rate has spiked over the league average, which has made him an intriguing player, especially in fantasy circles. Unfortunately, it’s been not nearly enough to make him a consistently average threat at the plate.

What could be key to Hampson’s success on the offensive end will be whether or not he sees a spike in BABIP.

Notice in the graph below how his career-high wOBA last year was particularly fueled by a high BABIP in comparison to years past.

Hampson seemed to benefit a lot on balls pitched on the inside part of the zone, at least based on his batting average and expected batting average zone charts.

Notice the batting average difference in 4, 5, and 7 from his expected batting average in those zones a season ago in Miami.

As Royals fans can see, there was a near 200-point difference between his batting average and expected batting average in those three zones. Therefore, it will be intriguing to see how Hampson fares on those inside pitches again in 2024.

Hampson has the potential to produce hard-hit balls on those pitches a long-term thing, or at least in Kansas City.

Here’s an example of Hampson roping an inside pitch (in zone 4 specifically) from Tampa Bay’s Shawn Armstrong, which produces a batted ball exit velocity of 103.3 MPH. The result is a triple at Tropicana Field, thanks to Hampson’s speed.

Garrett Hampson-3B-2023

Granted, BABIP can be fluky, and in Hampson’s case, the hard-hit data doesn’t suggest that his .379 mark a season ago will be sustainable in 2024.

Then again, Hampson did slash .315/.381/.435 with a .816 OPS in 105 plate appearances after the All-Star Break. So maybe he really tapped into his batted-ball ability in the second half in Miami.

This could make the Royals’ acquisition of Hampson a steal, much like the Michael A. Taylor acquisition a couple of seasons ago.

Is Another Trade Looming?

At the surface level, the Hampson acquisition by the Royals appears a little head-scratching.

After all, it doesn’t appear initially that he is a major upgrade over Kyle Isbel or Drew Waters in the outfield, or Maikel Garcia, Bobby Witt, Jr., Nick Loftin, or Michael Massey in the infield. In fact, it seems like the Royals could get the same kind of value out of Loftin at a fraction of the cost (and with more years of team control as well).

That said, I think the Hampson signing shows two things to expect from the Royals organization going forward this offseason:

1.) They have a type of player that they feel they can work with; 2.) There may be some other roster moves looming, as Jack Johnson of Locked on Royals suggested in his analysis of the move.

To be honest, the Hampson signing has a lot of “Rays Vibes” to it.

Hampson was once a top prospect in the Rockies system as recently as 2019. He also had some buzz after some short productive stints in that previous organization (especially in 2020 and 2021), but it just never got fully realized.

The Royals are hoping they can tap into him in the right ways to unlock what he did in Miami over the course of a full season.

The Rays did that with players like Harold Ramirez and Jose Siri. Like Hampson, they had similar prospect statuses, Major League luster, and intriguing toolsets with the Guardians and Astros, respectively, but could never put it fully together.

Once they went to Tampa though, they finally broke out and became productive players.

Picollo is hoping that Hampson can be a success story in Kansas City like Ramirez and Siri were in Tampa.

Secondly, the Hampson signing probably means that another move may be looming, probably at the expense of another position player on the 40-man roster. It wouldn’t be surprising to see Edward Olivares, Dairon Blanco, or even Samad Taylor moved in the next week or so to not just make room for Hampson on the 40-man, but on the active roster as well.

Who/what will the Royals get in return? Pitching depth? Prospect capital? Cash?

I guess Royals fans will have to be patient…

That said, expect a position player to be moved soon, which will really get this Royals offseason going.

Photo by Rich Schultz/Getty Images

11 thoughts on “What Can Royals Fans Take Away From the Garrett Hampson Signing?”

  11. […] Hampson and Frazier are both on reasonable one-year deals (with Frazier having a team option that likely won’t be exercised) that will make it easy for the Royals to stomach should they part ways with the pair of utility guys. As for Renfroe, he’s a bit more expensive, and his deal has a player option, which gives Renfroe more negotiation power. Still, if the Royals were willing to eat money on the Hunter Dozier deal, they’ll do the same with Renfroe if they can’t trade him away. […]

Leave a Reply to Royals Rumblings – News for December 1, 2023 - Balance SportscastCancel reply