CINCINNATI — Rookie David Hamilton is a man of few words. He spoke with reporters after the Red Sox set their single-game franchise stolen base record with nine against the Yankees on June 16. Hamilton swiped four of the nine bags, then gave a simple 10-word answer to the first question he got asked.
“It was fun. It was just overall a fun game,” Hamilton said.
Hamilton’s answers to reporters are often brief. He’ll give some insightful information but he typically keeps it short.
“I think I’m kind of just more of a chill person in general,” Hamilton said over the weekend when asked to describe his personality. “I don’t talk too much in general. Yeah, that’s pretty much it.”
The 26-year-old shortstop/second baseman doubled and scored a run in Boston’s 7-4 victory over the Reds on Sunday here at Great American Ball Park. He is batting .283 with four homers, nine doubles, one triple and 21 steals in 53 games.
Hamilton has a stress-free personality off the field.
“I feel like everything happens for a reason,” he said. “So I feel like stressing about things that you can’t really control is going to do more harm than good.”
That stress-free philosophy doesn’t always translate to baseball.
“Off the field, I don’t worry about much. It’s just with baseball,” Hamilton said.
He said he has brought the stress and frustration of bad games home with him.
“I would try not to and I would say I wasn’t but I would. It’s hard to do,” Hamilton said. “That definitely has happened throughout my whole career really. I feel like I’m just now starting to get a little bit better at that. But I think it helps to stay even-keeled. Not too high. Not too low.”
He watches all his at-bats to learn from them whether he went 4-for-4 or 0-for-4. Some of those 0-for-4s still sometimes get to him.
“Yeah, for sure,” Hamilton said. “But it was a lot worse in the past. It was like I’d be hitting good and then have a couple of O-for games and it would just start to snowball. But yeah, now I believe in what I’m doing. If I have an O-for or two or three, just gotta keep going, just keep believing in what you’re doing.”
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Hamilton has faced adversity in his career. A scooter accident caused him to slice his Achilles and miss his entire junior year at the University of Texas. He dropped in the draft because of it.
He played through a torn UCL in his thumb last season.
He was always a top base stealer in the minors but he went through plenty of slumps with the bat. He got off to a good start in the organization. He batted .294 with a .388 on-base percentage, .471 slugging percentage and .859 OPS in 18 games during April 2022, after being acquired in the Hunter Renfroe trade that offseason. But he then posted a .186/.239/.337/.576 line in 21 games in May 2022 and .224/.283/.341/.624 line in 21 games in June 2022.
“Up until last year I thought I had the talent but I was like, ‘Am I ever going to make it?’ I feel like that’s a normal thought,” he said.
He finally did make it to the majors for the first time in 2023 but he struggled in 15 games. He went 4-for-33 (.121 batting average). He focused this past offseason on hitting line drives.
“That’s the main thing,” he said. “I did have a torn UCL last year but I think I still would have hit pretty much the same because I feel like it was more mental than physical. I was working on line drives. And I’m still working on the mind to get the mind right.
“I think it’s really just experience,” Hamilton added about the transition from Triple A to the majors. “You start to get a little bit more success and you just get a little bit more confidence, a little bit more experience, it kind of just goes from there. If you come up and you start struggling, it gets in your head. You’re like, ‘I’ve gotta do more.’ You start asking yourself, ‘Am I ready for this?’ Stuff like that. But once you have a little bit of success, I feel like it starts to become just baseball again. I feel like we’re all good players. That’s how we make it to this level. And we’ve just gotta convince ourselves that we’re good. Obviously you’ve got to put the work in.”
Making it to the majors and then putting it all together are two totally different things, he said.
“That’s a different step,” Hamilton explained. “Once you’re here, you’ve got a lot of adjustments that you need to do and a lot of work that you need to do. Some people are blessed, man. They can roll out of bed and rake. I’m not that fortunate.”
He went just 10-for-49 (.204) to start off this season after Boston recalled him from Worcester on April 6 to take injured shortstop Trevor Story’s spot on the active roster. Hamilton worked a lot on his swing in the cage when he started only three games from April 19-May 14. He received just 14 plate appearances during that stretch.
Since then, he has batted .320 with a .364 on-base percentage, .495 slugging percentage, three homers, eight doubles, one triple, 11 RBIs, 18 runs, seven walks, 25 strikeouts and 17 steals in 34 games (110 plate appearances).
“Honestly, the swing feels very similar,” he said. “If there’s changes with my stance, with my swing, I don’t really feel them. I try to be a little bit shorter, a little bit more direct to the ball. But other than that, man, I feel the same.”
He owns both Double-A Portland and Triple-A Worcester’s single-season stolen base records. He swiped 70 bases in 119 games for Portland in 2022, then 57 bases in 103 games for Worcester last year. What makes him such an elite base stealer?
“I think I’m fast. I think I’m quick,” Hamilton said. “I think I get to top speed quick. I think I have a good jump. I think reactions are quick. I have a feel for what pitchers are doing. And little tendencies that you might not see, I can see. I think that all just plays into it a little bit. I’m not saying I’m the best by any means because I know dudes were stealing 90 bags last year. I’ve never done that. But I’ve been doing it for a long time.”
Speedsters like Hamilton became more valuable last year when MLB implemented new rules (pitch timer, elimination of shifts, limit on pickoff attempts, larger bases).
“I think it definitely benefited me,” Hamilton said. “I was going to steal whether or not the clock was what it was. But I think it benefits all base stealers really. I think it entices it. It invites it more into the game, which is cool.”
