BUFFALO, NY — Last year a 22-year-old Dalton Pompey started the MLB season as the Toronto Blue Jays’ everyday centre fielder. A month later, he was in triple-A, riding the buses and playing before the meager crowds of the International League. A month after that, double-A—riding even shoddier busses and playing in front of even fewer. Come October, he was in the ALDS, pinch-running in that unbelievable seventh inning of Game 5, and jumping up and down in front of the dugout when Jose Bautista hit the home run everyone remembers. And a week after that, he was in the Dominican Republic, serving a very brief stint for a winter ball outfit by the name of Leones del Escogido.
“That was nuts, right?” Pompey says of his nomadic 2015. “And it goes so quick. You really learn nothing’s given to you in this game; that you can’t take stuff for granted. I think about that a lot.”
Today, Pompey is a Buffalo Bison, playing centre field in triple-A where he’s hitting .267/.341/.345 in 31 games to start the season. It’s unlikely that he’ll move from this level unless those numbers significantly improve or there’s catastrophe in the major league outfield. And that makes a great deal of sense, because at this point in his young career, Pompey could probably benefit from simply being in one place for an extended period of time.
Remember, last year wasn’t his first rambling season. He played at four different levels in 2014, too, when he shot up the Blue Jays system from A-ball to the MLB, making a brief layover at every station in between. This isn’t how you draw up a top prospect’s development.
“I feel like I’m kind of going through all of these learning experiences now. Usually guys go through it before they get to the big leagues. But I’m going through it after the fact,” Pompey says. “Like, I didn’t know what a routine really was until after I got to the big leagues and I started seeing guys doing different stuff and talking to them about how they go about their business. I really didn’t know how to go about things because I just didn’t have enough time to learn that, you know?”
Since Pompey was drafted by the Blue Jays as a tantalizingly toolsy high schooler in the 16th round of the 2010 MLB Draft, the most time he’s spent at one level consecutively is the 115 games he played for single-A Lansing in 2013. Since then, it’s been an unending journey up and down and up and back down through the Blue Jays system.
Even this season has been a frustratingly fitful one, as Pompey has been in and out of the Bisons lineup with a series of injuries. He finished spring training with a bout of turf toe in his left foot, which limited him early in the season. Then he jammed his left heel trying to beat out a groundball at first base in late April, which held him out for a week and a half. A few days ago he ran into a wall at Coca Cola Field while chasing a liner and suffered a contusion near the patella tendon in his left knee. That’s sidelined him for the two games Buffalo has played since.
“It’s just been tough getting into a consistent rhythm. I get hurt and then I’m back in there and then something happens. It’s just kind of throwing me off,” Pompey says. “It’s been frustrating. Because the minute I start feeling good then something happens and it just derails that.”
It’s been an especially defeating series of events for Pompey, because the 23-year-old came into this season with a firm goal to be more consistent—both on the field and off. He wants to maintain the same swing and plate approach through hot spells and cold. He wants to be the same personality in the clubhouse on a day-to-day basis, not allowing success or adversity to affect his psyche too dramatically. And he wants to prepare the same way for each and every game, digging into his scouting report homework and truly understanding how pitchers are trying to attack him. But when you’re in and out of the lineup so often, it’s tough.
And as Pompey struggled through a 1-for-28 slump around the time of his heel injury, he was starting to lose focus. But a five-game visit in late May by close friend Devon Travis, who was rehabbing from off-season shoulder surgery, helped put Pompey back on track.
“I feel like Devon really does it the right way. Everyday, no matter what’s happening, he’s always the same guy. And I got a chance to kind of see what he does and try to learn from him during the time that he was here. That really goes a long way for me,” Pompey says. “I’m just trying to be more consistent with my overall approach. I know everybody says that and tries to do that. But that’s something that I’m really focusing on. Because I know that’s the difference between being here and being in Toronto.”
To that point, Buffalo’s clubhouse has been a very good place for a player like Pompey to exist. From Casey Kotchman to Domonic Brown to Scott Diamond to Alexi Casilla to Wade LeBlanc, the list of players in that room with extensive major league experience goes on and on. Pompey has been busy picking their brains. And in case that doesn’t take, the Blue Jays have had a steady stream of advisors dropping in to offer mentorship, including roving outfield and base-running coordinator Tim Raines, who’s been working with Pompey since the Blue Jays drafted him.
“It’s a work in progress. But I really think it’s only a matter of time before the light clicks on for him,” Raines says. “I don’t think that it’s a secret that he has all the tools and an opportunity to play at the major league level for a long time.”
Raines is right — Pompey’s abilities are evident. He’s lightning quick in the outfield and on the base paths, and he’s shown an ability to hit for both average and power throughout his professional career. In one of his first major league games, a 21-year-old Pompey hit a Felix Hernandez sinker more than 400 feet into the second deck at Rogers Centre. Part of the reason he came up so quickly during that 2014 season was because he was hitting .317/.392/.469 in 500 minor league plate appearances, experiencing his best success at triple-A, a level he was six years too young for at the time.
But his funks have been equally significant, like the .209/.294/.253 cold spell he suffered through after he lost the Blue Jays centre field job to Kevin Pillar and was sent to triple-A, a run of poor performance that earned him a further demotion to double-A.
“I feel as though one day I can be the best player on the field, and then the next day I’m just totally lost,” Pompey says. “It’s not so much about how I’m focusing, per se. It’s more just about understanding who I am as a player and what I need to do to be successful and what type of routine I need to get into.”
That last line sounds exactly like what Raines has been telling Pompey — to keep working, to not lose his focus, to make an honest effort to improve each and every day. Sometimes, when Raines is on the road visiting another affiliate he’ll call the young prospect to check in on him, and make sure he remains concentrated on making the most of his abilities.
“If you’re him, and you’re that close to being an everyday major league player, you would think you’d do everything you can to make it happen. And he’s just not there yet for some reason. I’m not sure why. He’s putting the work in. He’s just not getting the results out on the field,” Raines says. “What I do know is he’s had a taste of what it’s like in the big leagues. And there’s no other place to be as a player. The major leagues are the ultimate goal. But once you get that taste, you have to want it even more to get back.”
It seems that Pompey does in fact want it, but surely it takes more than just that. And so far this season, whether it’s the physical limitations of the various ailments in his left leg or the inability to get consistent at-bats and find a groove, injuries have clearly limited him from taking the steps he needs to.
You can also make a pretty decent case that Pompey has been hard done by the organization, which rushed an unfinished product through the minor leagues and stunted his development. The best thing for Pompey may be to not see the majors at all this year, or at least not until the Bisons season is through in September, as he works to master the intricacies of the game that he should have been learning over the last two years. It’s not like the Blue Jays are wanting for outfielders at Rogers Centre, where very capable individuals currently speak for all three positions.
But two of those three are pending free agents, and there could be a very clear lane for Pompey to reach the big leagues once again next spring if neither Jose Bautista nor Michael Saunders are re-signed. That’s where he ultimately wants to be. And where he thinks he’s learned the most, for better or worse.
“I don’t regret anything. A lot of the stuff I went through up there was a learning experience — it’s only going to help me going forward. And when I went back up in the playoffs and got to make contributions, that did a lot for me. The experience made me more confident. And it also made me appreciate being there,” Pompey says. “Because I feel like when you’re here in the minors sometimes you lose sight of being in the big leagues. But then once you’re there you realize how special it is to be there. And how few guys get that opportunity. So, I know every time I go back from now on I’m just going to soak it in and put myself in the best possible situations to succeed. And if I do, I do. And if I don’t, I don’t—and I go back to the drawing board.”