Garrett Hampson, roster creativity, and the veteran utility player conundrum

He fits a specific bill, but is it one the team needs?

The other day, I watched a Jon Bois video about how the Pittsburgh Pirates blew a 10-run lead that they built in the very first inning to the Philadelphia Phillies on June 8th, 1989. There were many Phillies heroes that day, and one of the most notable ones was Steve Jeltz. Jeltz hit two home runs that day and ended up with 5 RBIs—the difference between the Phillies winning 15-11 (which they did) and losing 11-10.

This was pretty stunning to everyone involved because, before the 1989 season, Jeltz had hit all of one homer in the previous six seasons combined. Across his career, Jeltz had two things going for him: he had excellent plate discipline could play every position in the infield. But he wasn’t a great fielder and he was certainly a poor overall hitter, posting a wRC+ of 61 in over 2000 plate appearances. The result: a replacement level player at the bottom of the roster. You knew what you were going to get, and it was not great.

Nearly 35 years later, the Royals have their own version of Jeltz, and his name is Garrett Hampson. Like Jeltz, Hampson has spent his career playing all over the place as a utility hitter; he’s accrued at least 98 innings at second base, third base, shortstop, left field, and center field. Like Jeltz, Hampson’s offense is lacking: while he has much more power, he walks much less often than Jeltz did and strikes out much more than Jeltz, and his career wRC+ is at 70—better than Jeltz, but not by much.

In his video, Bois takes great care to emphasize how skilled Jeltz was. Every player who makes it to Major League Baseball is an extreme outlier on the upper end of the talent spectrum when it comes to all baseball players, and the margins between these players is razor thin. In his day, Jeltz was heavily criticized for being a poor big league player.

Again, like Jeltz, Hampson is an incredibly skilled professional athlete at one of the hardest sports to play in the world. And like Jeltz, Hampson is one of the handful of players at the absolute bottom of the big league talent pool. Compared to his MLB peers, Hampson offers very little to a big league team, and players like him don’t move the needle for their teams. That is just how it is.

Look: there are only so many spots on a big league roster, and it’s fair to question teams’ usage of those spots. Like Bois, I don’t have any animosity towards Hampson or players like him. I hope they succeed. But baseball is a mutually exclusive game: because Hampson has a roster spot, other players that might be deserving don’t.

That is ultimately my problem with the Royals here. Hampson isn’t a good MLB player. By expected weighted on base average—which looks at exit velocity, launch angle, and sprint speed—Hampson is by far the worst player on the team. He’s been way outperforming his peripherals and still only has a 71 wRC+. He’s just not going to be anything other than a tail-end bench player, and the Royals knew that going in and still signed him to a one-year, guaranteed $2 million deal. He is a replacement level player, full-stop.

Yes, Hampson’s spot on the position player list is the very last one. But I will never understand why teams would rather sign a player like him when they could simply give somebody with more upside a try. I don’t get it. Before this year, Hampson’s career WAR in his previous 500+ games was 0.8. Could an unproven player be worse? Absolutely. It’s just, with the offensive bar so low for guys like Hampson and Jeltz and Willie Bloomquist and other veteran utility guys throughout the years, why teams wouldn’t give those fringe chances to their own eager, young minor leaguers is beyond me.

I suppose I know why teams in fringy contention mode like this year’s Royals sign guys like Hampson: it’s to get a certain performance floor for these specific roster spots. But at the same time, these vet utility guys won’t move the needle. Other players if given some playing time might. Kansas City isn’t the only team doing this, by the way. They’re just the team doing this right in front of us while intriguing players like Devin Mann, Drew Waters, and Logan Porter continue not to get shots while the “safe” options—which aren’t very good anyway—get those plate appearances.