Pompey learning what it takes to play in big leagues
Jays’ top prospect willing to do whatever club needs if he gets September call-up
BUFFALO— As the dust from Major League Baseball’s July 31 trade deadline settled and the Blue Jays wrapped up a four-day frenzy in which GM Alex Anthopoulos dealt nearly a dozen minor-league prospects, Dalton Pompey — one of the team’s few surviving trade chips — tentatively posted his first tweet of the day.
“*Looks around* Am I still here? I think I am #BlueJays #MadeItOutAlive.”
This season has not unfolded as Pompey hoped or expected it would, so perhaps getting traded from the only organization he has even known would have been fitting. But the 22year-old Mississauga native was relieved to still be a Blue Jay and to still have the chance to end his year in Toronto, where it started.
This has been the most turbulent season of Pompey’s young career. After an impressive cameo with the Jays last September, he entered his first big-league spring training as the front-runner to be the team’s starting centre fielder. The speedy switch-hitter was celebrated in newspaper articles and TV specials as potentially the franchise’s first hometown star. He broke camp with the Jays but struggled out of the gate, hitting just .193 through the first month while also making mental mistakes in the field. At one point, he admitted he was “playing scared.”
He was sent down to Triple-A Buffalo the first week of May, but his struggles continued and a month later he was sent down further to Double-A New Hampshire. Last season, Pompey turned heads for how quickly he climbed the Jays’ minor-league ranks, rising from Class-A to the majors in just a few months.
Now, he seemed to be falling just as fast.
“I was pretty distraught about it,” he admitted Sunday, sitting in the Bisons’ dugout in Buffalo. “It was kind of an eye-opener.”
But it was at that low point when he started to turn things around. Working with New Hampshire’s hitting coach Stubby Clapp — a fellow Canadian — Pompey rediscovered his swing and rebuilt his confidence. He was back in Buffalo by mid-July and has been playing much better this time around. “From where I was a couple months ago to where I am now, it’s just night and day,” he said. “I feel like myself again.”
Amid the roller-coaster of his last two seasons — he moved up or down a level six times in the last calendar year — Pompey said he has learned more about himself than any other time in his life.
“I feel like I’ve grown up a lot in the last couple months,” he said. “I went from being the opening-day centre fielder to a month later being in Triple-A to a month later being in Double-A. So, I mean, it kind of humbled me really fast.”
Despite the fact he started the season in the big leagues, Pompey said he will be more proud of himself if he earns a September call-up this year than he was last.
“Last year, I kind of just went up-up-up all the way, and this year I started at the top and then went down, and now you’re trying to work your way back up.”
As the cliche goes, the only thing harder than getting to the majors is staying there. Pompey found that out first hand.
“Once I got there I wasn’t really setting any new goals for myself,” he said. “I was kind of just, ‘I’m here, I’m in the big leagues, this is great.’ But how do I take that next step to become a good major-league player and then a great one? ”
Born in December of1992, between the Jays’ back-to-back World Series, Pompey has no memory of the franchise’s glory years. But growing up in the Toronto area, he understands what a return to the post-season would mean for the city.
“I see what the team is doing and they’re playing unbelievable right now,” he said. “You don’t want to interfere with what’s going on, so if I do end up getting called up in September, whatever I have to do help the team — whether it’s run, go in for defence, whatever they want me to do — I’ll do it, because this is a big thing not only for myself and the organization but the whole country.”
The Jays have hinted Pompey will be called up when rosters expand in September. If nothing else, he could be used as a pinch runner in close games. There may be another reason to bring him back on board.
“Everybody used to say I was the good-luck charm on a team,” Pompey said. “Because I was born in ’92 and I’m from Toronto.”