Yankees No. 1 pitching prospect Chase Hampton is a big-time country boy from small-town USA. He grew up in Kilgore, Texas, population 13,491. Dallas is 120 miles to the west, Houston 200 miles south and Shreveport, La., 70 miles east.
In Kilgore, the hot spots for the young guys and gals on summer and weekend nights are the Walmart and Whataburger parking lots. Building backyard fires is a pastime, too, and Hampton usually shows up with his acoustic guitar. Self-taught, he strums favorite country tunes for buddies dressed in typical attire for locals, cowboy boots and a 10-gallon hat.
This time of the year, Hampton is a cowboy who roots on his Cowboys.
On New Year’s Eve, he was in A&T Stadium in Arlington for the Dallas’ controversial win over the Lions. He heard the official announce the wrong number when Detroit Lions offensive lineman reported eligible for a late-game, two-point conversation that wrongly was wiped out, handing the Cowboys a big win that might end up keying a division title and a first-round playoff bye.
“We got away with one there,” Hampton said.
After football, Hampton headed over to nearby Fort Worth for a concert at Dickies Arena. One of his favorite new country music artists headlined, Parker McCullum. He was there with his girlfriend, three best buddies and a cousin. Good times.
Later that night, they rang in the new year together.
Hampton can only hope 2024 is as good as his 2023.
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Before debuting as a pro last April, the 2022 sixth-round pick out of Texas Tech already was on the radar ranked 24th in the Yankees’ top 30 prospects list by MLB Pipeline. By the end of the season, Hampton shot up to fourth behind three outfielders — Spencer Jones, Jasson Dominguez and Everson Pereira.
The 6-foot-2, 225 pounder earned the attention by dominating High A pitching for Hudson Valley through mid-June and holding his own in the second half playing Double-A ball for the Somerset Patriots.
He finished with a 4-3 record, 3.63 ERA and 145 strikeouts in 106.2 innings over 20 starts. He posted a 2.69 ERA in nine starts with Hudson Valley, then a 4.37 ERA in 11 Double-A starts.
His arsenal includes fastballs that average 93-94 mph, looping slow curves that he copied from Clayton Kershaw, sharp-breaking sweepers that used to be a hard sliders plus cutters and changeups.
“His stuff is just nasty,” Hudson Valley manager Sergio Santos said last June. “He’s the type of guy that when you see his stuff, you’re sitting there going, ‘Man, how does he ever get hit?’ His stuff is just as good as any big-league guy. It’s just a matter of innings and experience until he toes the slab in the big leagues one day.”
Sometime in the next year or two, Hampton figures to be ready.
“I wrote Hampton up as a backend-rotation guy,” an American League scout said. “When I saw him last season in Somerset, he was 92 to 97and sat 94 with some tail and sink. He was aggressive with his fastball. He worked both sides of the plate. He threw some good curveballs with depth that he threw for strikes early in counts and got chases late. His slider has tilt and some sweeper effect to it. He’s aggressive, too. Good makeup. He attacks and competes.”
After a workout a few days ago, Hampton talked about his upbringing, his first season as a Yankees prospect and his future with NJ Advance Media:
What’s your offseason been like?
Hampton. I’m living in Fort Worth and working out at APEC every weekday. It’s throwing and lifting. There’s a high school field that’s right across the street we can use.
Are there any big leaguers there. Are you throwing to hitters?
Hampton: (New Yankees outfielder) Trent Grissom is there. (Royals star shortstop) Bobby Witt Jr., is there. I really don’t pay much attention to the position players. I haven’t thrown to any of them yet. I’m sure I will at some point. Maybe next week. I threw to one of my best friends last week. He told me he wanted to be in the box. He’s not a pro. He’s off the couch. He hadn’t picked up a bat in three or four years. I was proud of him. He actually touched a fastball. He tipped it, but I let him know it was coming. He’s going to go to the grave bragging he tipped my fastball.
You roomed last season with Drew Thorpe, who was part of the Juan Soto trade. San Diego wound up with four pitchers in the return. When the rumors were flying, were you and Thorpe talking about what might happen?
Hampton: Thorpe sent me a text out of the blue, ‘Are we going to be Padres?’ That’s all he wrote. I responded, ‘I have no idea.’ The whole thing was a whirlwind. It could have gone either way. It could have been me, but it was Thorpe. The Padres got a really good pitcher. He’s going to be lights out for them.
Are you still on edge a little bit? The Yankees have a hole in their rotation. Along with a few free agents, the best options include trading for Dylan Cease or Corbin Burnes. You’ll surely be one of the prospects teams want back in a trade.
Hampton: Whatever the Yankees decide to do, I’m fine with it. I’ll be OK with doing whatever. I would love to be a Yankee. I’d love to pitch in New York City. It would be awesome., but who knows?
What’s your best Little League memory?
Hampton: I was four and my brother’s tee-ball team was short a player, so they grabbed me from the stands. They said, ‘Throw this jersey on!’ I was playing against 5- and 6-year-olds, but the coach was the pitcher. The only thing I remember is I hit a bomb over the fence.
Wow, a homer in your game and you were underage! When did you start pitching?
Hampton: I pitched and played other positions through my freshman year of high school. After that year I didn’t sign up to play summer ball. I thought I was done with baseball. I never really enjoyed it. I was in my room one day and my brother comes in and says, ‘Hey, we’re down a pitcher and we need you to pitch today.’ I told him I hadn’t thrown a baseball in a month. He said, ‘You’ll be alright. ‘I went out there and threw three scoreless innings against a lot of 18-year-olds. I guess that was the start of me being a pitcher and liking baseball again?
What was it about that game?
Hampton: There was a college coach there who came up to me and said, ‘You’re a pretty good pitcher.’ When we were talking, I told him I didn’t want to play baseball anymore. He encouraged me to keep playing. He told me I threw hard and that I had a pitcher’s body, good size. Actually, I was a late bloomer. I was very unathletic until the summer after eighth grade. That’s when I started growing. That’s when I started doing some workouts and adding more muscle.”
Gerrit Cole will like hearing you play guitar. Last summer when the Yankees were in Seattle, he started playing classic rock for me in the clubhouse. There was an electric guitar in the clubhouse signed by Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder that he picked up. He’s pretty good. When did you start playing?
Hampton: That’s awesome. I picked it up freshman year of college. I’m not talented enough to sing and play at the same time, but the song I play best is called ‘Washington Street’ by Josh Meloy. It’s one of the songs that my buddies and I like to play when we’re sitting around a fire hanging out.
What other hobbies do you have?
Hampton: Duck hunting. I’ll drive over to Oklahoma with some friends for a weekend. You hunt early real early in the morning. So much fun.
Tell me about your first pro season. You skipped Low A and put up very impressive numbers. You dominated High A for a couple months, then went to Double-A and had mostly good starts. What keyed your success?
Hampton: In high school and college, I always had a good fastball and the curveball always has been there. So I knew in the back of my mind I had two pitches that I could throw for strikes. That’s what I took into pro ball. When I was at Hudson Valley, my stuff overpowered everybody. They just couldn’t hit my me because of the movement, the speed. When I got to Double-A, everybody can hit everything. I had to learn how to use my fastball to my advantage. I had to learn how to pitch with the slider, how to pitch with the cutter. I had to learn to use the curveball a bit more. When I got into trouble, I was using my fastball way too much to lefties. I learned to throw fastballs and curveballs to lefties, fastballs and sliders to righties. That gave me a better chance of getting Double-A hitters out.
You certainly impressed the people making the prospect rankings. Were you surprised how far you jumped in the Yankees top 30? You even moved into MLB Pipeline’s top 100.
Hampton: I wouldn’t say I expected it, but it was something that I was working toward. You hear about top pitching prospects and I was thinking, “I have to be like that guy.’ I thought it was getting serious when I went into the top 100. That was pretty cool. I never thought I was going to jump into that ranking. But at the end of the day, it’s a ranking. It’s just a number. If I’m ranked first or 30th, I’m still going to perform to what I can do.
You have a really good curveball and I’ve read that it’s a hybrid of Kershaw’s big breaking ball and Trevor Bauer’s curve. How did that come about?
Hampton: I grew up about two and a half hours away from where Kershaw grew up in Fort Worth. I got to see Kershaw is in high school when I was a little kid. I was three. I can’t remember anything from the game, but the name stuck with me and all through growing up I was a Kershaw fan. When I was in high school, I’ve morphed my curveball into Kershaw’s 12-to-6 curve. I learned to throw it from watching a video that Trevor Bauer has on YouTube. I’ve been using it ever since.
Have you met Kershaw?
Hampton: Neve never him. That’s on my bucket list.
You didn’t pitch in any minor-league games your draft year after throwing only 57 innings for Texas Tech? Why was your pro debut delayed until last season? Did you spend the summer of ‘22 throwing at the minor-league complex after signing?
Hampton: Yes, sir. Whenever I was drafted, the Yankees said, ‘We don’t want you to throw in games. We want you in Tampa to work on a few things. Get your mechanics right.’ That was fine with me, so that’s what we did. I tweaked my mechanics. I changed my slider to a sweeper. I added a cutter. They didn’t touch the curveball.
What was the biggest change in your mechanics?
Hampton: There are a lot of things that I can get into that needed to change, but the main two were my hip hinge and lead-leg block were really bad. I’d step and hyperextend a little bit. I’d fall into my knee. When I was over there in Tampa, the Yankees said, ‘We’ve got to fix that and when we do, you’re going to throw harder.’ I told them I’d been trying for three years and just can’t figure out how to do it. We figured out some things and once I did, I just took off.
Has your velocity increased since you became a Yankee?
Hampton: A little. The strike percentage increased a lot. I’m throwing way more strikes wherever I want. My overall command is better. It’s crazy how much that little tinkering helped me.
How much added velo did you have? I read where you hit 99 in college facing Notre Dame.
Hampton: I don’t think I was up to 99. I skipped the ball skipped the turf that day and they read it wrong. I know myself. If I threw 99, I would know it. I do know that was I was up to 96 that game multiple times. I’ve been up to 97 multiple times. But in college I was more 92-to-94. Now I’m 93-to-95. That’s only 1 more mph, but my fastball is moving more now.
You used to throw a traditional slider that had a horizontal break. The sweeper has a bigger break that sweeps. Is this a better pitch for you? Was it easy to master?
Hampton: At first, it was very uncomfortable. I was so used to throwing my slider off two fingers, but the more I threw the sweeper the more comfortable it got. Now that I understand the movement of it, I can control it a little bit better. When I was in Hudson, I had no idea where it was going to go because it moved so much. If I threw it at the batter, it was going to be in the middle of the plate. If it threw it toward the middle, it was going to be three inches outside. Throughout the year, I got better and better knowing where to throw it.
Is the sweeper your best out pitch now, or is your big curve still your best two-strike weapon?
Hampton: I love my curveball. My curve is nasty. It’s a spike curve. I would say to righties the sweeper is probably the out pitch and the curveball is for the lefties.
You’re known for being emotional on the mound. You pump your fist and yell in excitement after getting big outs. Do you enjoy showing your emotions or does it just happen?
Hampton: I think the game needs that a little bit. Nothing too crazy. Do it towards your dugout. The other team can’t do anything if you’re not looking at them. That’s how I feel about it. In college, our coaches liked how I’d get our team fired up in certain situations, so I just kept doing it. Even in pro ball,, it’s just baseball. We’re having fun. It’s a game. When you do the job in a big situation, it’s OK to get rowdy.
Q: You were in minor-league camp last spring, but joined the big club for a Grapefruit League game. You pitched a scoreless ninth inning in a win over Detroit. You were credited with a save. You faced a couple hitters who were in the big leagues last season. Parker Meadows lined a single. Tyler Nevin hit a grounder to short that turned into game-ending double play. What was your biggest takeaway from that experience?
Hampton: I got to throw the big-league balls. I loved that. The laces are tighter than minor-league balls. What stood out is big-league hitters aren’t hard to pitch to if I do my job. Pitching in a spring training game was the coolest thing.
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Randy Miller may be reached at rmiller@njadvancemedia.com.