Not Just a Speed Demon: Billy Hamilton's Unlikely Rise

Billy Hamilton breaks out of the batter's box so fast it's as if he were using starting blocks.

It's July 15, 2012, and Hamilton has hit one into the gap. He is 20. He is currently playing for an absurdly-named AA farm club of the Cincinnati Reds, the Pensacola Blue Wahoos. A wahoo is a type of fish. Hamilton is moving more like a sailfish or a marlin.

The ball deflects off the tip of the right fielder's glove. The center fielder knocks it up in the air and back toward the wall. They don't give up then, but they might as well have. By the time the guy in center is throwing the ball back to the infield, Hamilton is starting to round third. Tater Tot Tracker's Larry Granillo timed the dash at 13.8 seconds. It remains the fastest home run he has ever recorded. The 360 feet of a baseball diamond is just under 110 meters. 13.8 seconds for that distance is no world-class track time. But for a guy in baseball gear, making turns, starting after just having swung a bat? It is absurd.

The "Billy Hamilton: minor league legend" grew and grew. Last year, he traveled around the bases on an inside-the-park home run in 14.14 seconds. This time, the center fielder really did just give up. (A 2011 Hamilton homer clocked in at 14.22.) His speed wasn't limited to home run dashes. In 2012, he stole 155 bases at two minor-league levels, smashing Vince Coleman's 1985 record of 145.

"Thought I'd seen it all—but I'd never seen that," Ken Griffey Sr., then Hamilton's minor league manager, told SI in 2012. "I've seen all the great ones who could change the game with their speed. But Billy—it's true, he's a little bit different." At the end of the 2012 season, he was ranked the No. 20 prospect by Baseball America, No. 11 by MLB.com, and No. 14 by Baseball Prospectus.

Then he had an off year. After hitting .311 at two levels in 2012, Hamilton slumped to .256 playing for the AAA Louisville Bats last season. His stolen-base total fell from 155 to 75. He slugged just .343, a huge drop from his respectable .420 the season prior. He struck out more than 100 times for the third-straight minor league season. He plummeted in the rankings: No. 43 by BA, No. 37 by MLB.com, and No. 49 by BP. Baseball Prospectus ranked him lower than ever before. He didn't walk much. He didn't hit for much power. He was a flash-in-the-pan. He was no Vince Coleman.

On September 2, The Reds rolled the dice and called him up, and he hit well—and stole 13 bases while being caught just once—in an incredibly small sample size (13 games, 22 plate appearances). He hit .327 this spring and was penciled in as the Reds' starting center fielder but he started slow. At the end of April he was hitting just .245. He had stolen 11 bases but was thrown out 5 times; a 69-percent base stealing percentage is slightly below the "break-even point" for stolen-base percentage. The discussion surrounding Hamilton was all about speed. A cool animation detailed how much faster he is than other players. Baseball Prospectus' Sam Miller wrote an excellent article about baserunning, and Hamilton's strengths and weaknesses, and some even wondered whether Hamilton was literally the fastest man in the world. (This comes up occasionally with fast athletes including a 2012 New York Times article about Hamilton. "I'm a competitor, so I'm going to say I could beat him," Hamilton said of Usain Bolt, which is obviously absurd.)

And, over the last two months, Hamilton hasn't shown himself to be the best base-stealer in the game. He is above average on the base paths, stealing 35 bases in 47 attempts this year, but he lags behind in Fangraphs' base-running stats. He currently sits at 20th, behind 35-year-old Chase Utley! But a funny thing happened this year: Hamilton, falling as a prospect and thought to be all speed, has quickly become one of the best center fielders in baseball.

Cincinnati Reds beat writer John Fay has already anointed him so, defensively. Fay notes Hamilton's Ultimate Zone Rating/150 games is 27.6. The next closest is Boston's Jackie Bradley Jr. at 15.6. Hamilton's speed helps him to balls. "There was a ball hit to deep to leftfield, and the leftfielder throws his hands up because he's lost the ball in the sun," former manager Delino Deshields said in 2012. "I'm watching the ball, and thinking, This is trouble, and out of nowhere, I see this white flash, and I see that it's Billy, and he's running full speed. He ends up diving, laying out completely, and makes the catch at the warning track in leftfield. It was ridiculous. There isn't a player out there who would have caught that ball."

But it's more than speed. Hamilton has a hell of an arm for a 6-foot, 160-pound rookie. He has some strength, and he's wickedly accurate with it. "He's thrown accurately with a tremendous carry on his ball," Price told Fay. Despite being only 23, Hamilton has already taken charge in the Reds' outfield. "Guys like Jay Bruce and [Ryan] Ludwick, who've been playing the outfield way longer than I have, for them to tell me I'm the captain of the outfield, it means a lot to me," Hamilton said last month. "It's a big responsibility for me but I don't see it as a responsibility. I'm just out there playing center field and I'm learning." (Okay, neither Ludwick nor Bruce are defensive stalwarts, but still!)

But that trust the Reds have put in their first-year center fielder appears to have been extended to the bat, too. "Every time before we start a game, they say, 'you go, we go.' Every time I go up to bat, I know it's on me," Hamilton told the Cincinnati Enquirer. Since May 1, Hamilton is hitting .302 with 19 extra-base hits and 24 steals in 31 attempts. The Reds are still 7 games back in the NL Central, but their 23-year-old center fielder is very, very quickly becoming a star—and not just for his speed. "So skip the ethereal compliment that Hamilton has 'game-changing speed,'" ESPN's Christina Kahrl wrote last month. "Instead, consider the possibility that the Reds might have a game-changing ballplayer leading off for them."

Just don't discount the speed too much. There's one thing Billy Hamilton hasn't done in the majors yet, and he's looking to do it soon: Hit an inside-the-park home run. One can only imagine how fast he'll move around the basepaths. "He'll definitely do it," Jay Bruce said. "It's just a question of when."