Hampton, Johnson, What's the Difference?

Dave Paisley

The big news this week is, of course, the trade of Mike Hampton away from the Rockies. How things have changed since a mere two years ago when Hampton was more than happy to be on the receiving end of a wheelbarrow load of cash, certain he could change the face of Colorado pitching as we know it. As I recall, he was looking forward to his kids growing up in the delightfully thin Colorado air, safe in the knowledge their father would be inducted into the Hall of Fame as the first pitcher to tame the Coors Field Fear Factor.

Well, so much for that. Hampton not only failed to conquer Coors, he actually became even more inept away from the place. Perhaps it was the high expectations and the low results that resulted in more frustration and internal head games than he could cope with. However, there’s certainly a very good chance that Hampton will recover his form, especially in Atlanta.

We’ve all seen the weird three way deal that got Hampton to Atlanta, whereby the Rockies and the Marlins seem to end up paying more than Atlanta do for Hampton to pitch for the Braves. But such is life when a team signs a guy to an 8-year, $121M contract and he doesn’t perform as well as a raw rookie. With six years to go on the contract, and Hampton’ on-field performance a total disaster, the Rockies did what all teams do if they can — dump their problem for someone else’s problem.

Thing is, teams with similar problems are few and far between, especially when we’re talking about financial disasters as big as Hampton’s contract.

But hey, there’s Florida Marlins. Woohoo! With Charles Johnson a lower profile flop, it only took a little arm-twisting and a few million in cash to get that deal turned.

Here’s roughly how teams fared:

Colorado Took on $54M, gave $6.5M in cash, dumped $78.5M, saved $18M

Florida Gave away $30M, dumped $54M, saved $24M

Atlanta Pays $48.5M, but only $5.5M in the next three years

Colorado gets a few players that can help, while taking on a couple of big salaries (Johnson and Wilson). They still come out ahead, though.

Florida gets Juan Pierre, Tim Spooneybarger and a bag of rocks, but still saves a bunch of money.

Atlanta gets Hampton, takes on a bunch of his salary, but very little of it before Glavine and Maddux hit retirement.

It’s actually a pretty elegant way out of a stupid situation all around.

I did get curious to see how other big name pitching talent has fared in Denver. So here’s a look at five guys who you may have heard of who have pitched there (those being Hampton, Denny Neagle, Armando Reynoso, Pedro Astacio and Darryl Kile.)

For whatever reason, I decided to look at WHIP — Walks plus hits per inning pitched. The chart is a bit busy, but the key point is you can follow each guy’s career by the color and shape of the symbol. The red segments are Colorado years.

To start, take Armando Reynoso (please!) He’s the dark blue line with diamonds that starts high in 1991 and 1992 when he broke in with Atlanta. He spent 93-96 in Colorado, where he turned in pretty decent numbers, with only one bad year. His subsequent years with the Mets and Diamondbacks have only been slightly better than his days with the Rockies.

Pedro Astacio is the plum colored squares. He was a pretty decent pitcher for the Dodgers (great pitcher's park) until his move to Colorado, where his WHIP take a predictable uptick. Still not too bad, though, and getting out of Coors has brought his numbers back to the pretty good level.

The black diamond line is the late Darryl Kile, and he’s the first example of what Colorado considered a staff ace to move there. His experience was much like Hampton’s he could just never figure out how to pitch there. 1998 was bad, and 1999 was just awful. A return to sea level with the Cardinals and he was pretty good again.

He right blue triangles are Denny Neagle. He came over at the same time as Hampton, but has suffered much less. He hasn’t been great since his last year with Reds and the Yankees. Despite Coors, he’s been about as effective, but nowhere near his very good sea level years.

Finally there’s Hampton the green squares. Pitching in the Astrodome certainly helped Hampton quite a bit, as did New York. The move to Colorado followed Kile’s path — initial success, followed by the inevitable Coors ERA inflation, followed by an inability to pitch well anywhere. The rapid return to form of Darryl Kile is surely what has given the Braves hope.

But think of it this way - how far have we come when you can consider paying almost $50M for a player a bargain?

about the author

Signed any $120M contracts you regret recently? Send your experiences to Dave Paisley along with three Froot Loops(tm) boxtops to :drdjp@strikethree.com. See if you get any sympathy there...