Random Wednesday: Jeffrey Hammonds

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This week we return to the current era. Outfielder Jeffrey Hammonds starred at Stanford from 1990 to 1992, playing alongside Mike Mussina, among other, less notable future big leaguers.

The Baltimore Orioles selected Hammonds with the fourth pick overall in the 1992 draft, two slots before the New York Yankees nabbed a high-school shortstop named Derek Jeter. Perhaps pushed too quickly, Hammonds made his big-league debut on June 25, 1993, against those Yankees, after just 257 minor-league plate appearances. Hammonds singled twice and walked in three trips to the plate that day, and hit .305/.312/.467 in 33 games with Baltimore in ‘93.

The next three seasons saw Hammonds battle injuries and ineffectiveness, but in 1997, he finally started to deliver on his potential. That season he hit .264/.323/.486 for the Orioles in 118 games. The Orioles rewarded Hammonds by trading him to Cincinnati midway through the ‘98 season.

In 1999, Hammonds hit .279/.347/.523 in 123 games for the Reds. Again, he was rewarded with a trade — this time being shipped to Colorado for an aging Dante Bichette.

Hammonds took full advantage of his new situation, hitting .335/.395/.529 in 122 games for the Rockies. That winter, the Brewers, perhaps unaware of his gaudy splits (.399/.465/.651 at Coors Field, .275/.325/.415 on the road), inked Hammonds to an ill-advised 3-year contract worth roughly $22 million.

In a development that surprised nobody outside of the Milwaukee front office, Hammonds’ numbers regressed. Actually, that’s a tremendous understatement: he hit .248/.321/.398 in 187 games for the Brewers before being being released on June 4, 2003.

A few weeks later, the Giants signed Hammonds. He spent most of ‘03 and ‘04 in San Francisco, then played 13 games for the Washington Nationals in 2005. Now 37 years old, and presumably retired, Hammonds owns a .272/.338/.449 batting line (99 OPS+) in a tick over 3400 big-league plate appearances.