The San Francisco Giants just made perhaps the least surprising move of the offseason, agreeing to trade cash considerations to New York Mets In return for Cooper Hammel's strange, positionless switch hit.
The news was first reported by Fanside's Robert Murray.
This not-so-surprising news was only made possible by the very surprising news that came out last month: that Northern Giants Seattle Mariners Hammel was waived without being picked up by the Giants. Instead, they waited until the Mets designated the 29-year-old for assignment before swooping in and grabbing him, filling the 40-man vacancy created when the team took a two-for-one deal and traded Mitch Haniger and Anthony DeSclafani. To-Who-Else-Seattle by Robbie Ray.
Hammel is pretty much everything the Giants crave when they juggle players at the end of the roster, which means he's basically a switch-hitting Blake Sabol with the worst numbers in the major league. He has mostly split his time in MLB between catcher and left field, and last year in AAA he took a third-place reliever at first base. He has a nice hitting tool (.288 batting average in AAA) and draws a lot of walks (169 free passes against 207 strikeouts in 977 plate appearances in AAA). It all led to plenty of offensive success at the top of the minors: In 2021, he posted a .942 OPS/155 wRC+ in 168 plate appearances for Milwaukee's AAA team, and a 1.004 OPS/148 wRC+ in 198 plate appearances for Arizona's AAA team team after a mid-season trade. He spent most of the next year in Diamondbacks MLB team, but in 156 plate appearances in AAA that season he had a .950 OPS/138 wRC+.
Things were less pretty in 2023, when Hamel had an .844 OPS/114 wRC+ at AAA in his first season in the Mariners organization. But Seattle's AAA affiliate, the Tacoma Rainiers, plays in the Pacific Coast League along with San Francisco's AAA team, the Sacramento River Cats. So, even though Hammel wasn't at his best, Giants scouts took a good look at him.
His time in the Majors was bleak. He played in 66 games in his first season in 2022, and just 10 last year, hitting .166/.264/.286 (58 wRC+), with a strikeout rate of 32.2% over the two seasons. But if he can capitalize on his success in the minor league, there's an interesting player out there (and he has an option remaining). He's also begun to reinvent his game a bit: After stealing just 24 bases in his first six pro seasons, Hamill swiped 27 sacks last year between AAA and the Majors.
It is also a good speaker.
There's no need to stress about the back end of the roster, since the Giants will flip, flip and trade pieces on and off the roster as players become available. But it's definitely worth noting how much the team overwhelms the roster with players and role players. Hamill joins Sabol as a duo of part-time catchers behind three full-time catchers: Patrick Bailey, Tom Murphy and Joey Bart. These two join Brett Wesley and Tyler Fitzgerald to form a quartet of part-time players behind eight full-time Turf residents: Jung Ho Lee, Michael Conforto, Mike Yastrzemski, Austin Slater, Luis Matos, Heliot Ramos, Wade Mickler, and TJ Hopkins.
Needless to say, more moves are on the horizon. Until then, enjoy your stay, Cooper…as brief as it may be.
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