Once upon a time, in another lifetime, Mike Hampton was one of the best left-handed pitchers of his day. Then the Rocky Mountains entered his life.

We don't need to get into what has happened to Hampton since. That's been better-documented this week than Michael Jackson's stupid baby tricks.

But now that Hampton has been airlifted out of Coors Field to a team where Cy Youngs grow like peach blossoms, only one question matters:

	Mike Hampton was 3-12 with a 6.44 ERA in 19 starts away from Coors Field in 2002.

Can he ever be that pitcher he used to be again?

We know what the Atlanta Braves think. They've gambled $48.5 million over the next six years that there's nothing wrong with Hampton that Turner Field and 5,200 feet closer to sea level can't cure.

But are they right about that? We asked three veteran major-league scouts who have watched Hampton extensively, pre-Denver and post-Denver, what they thought. They voted unanimously ...

Yes. (Not without some reservations, we might add. But yes.)

"I would bet he does," said one member of our panel. "His work habits have always been tremendous. He's a big-time competitor. He's not going to be happy making that kind of money and pitching that lousy. And he's going to one of the best pitcher's parks in the game."

OK, if we're going to start listing all the reasons Hampton should be better, let's start there -- with ...

Turner Field
The difference between pitching in Atlanta or Denver is kind of like the difference between skiing at Aspen or Savannah. Just this past year alone, 54 percent more runs were scored at Coors (991) than at Turner (642). So if Hampton's ERA merely makes that mathematical drop, according to scale, he'd go from 6.15 to 3.98. And the Braves will look smarter that Alex Trebek.

"That's a big, big yard," said one scout of Turner Field. "You've got to cream the ball to get it out of there. Pitching in a yard like that, he can go back to the way he used to pitch."

But there's more to this than the ballpark. Let's take a look at some of the other factors our scouts pointed to:

Delivery: If you watched Hampton pitch in 2002 and tried to compare it with how he looked in 2000, about the only thing that looked the same was his mustache.

"He tried to do too many things with the baseball there," said one scout, "to try to make up for the loss of his natural movement. It wound up screwing him up at home and on the road. He got in bad habits and that got him into bad muscle memory."

The Braves are sure hoping it was just bad muscle memory that propelled him to baseball's worst road record (3-12, 6.44). Whatever it was, though, the issue now is: How tough will it be for him to pull his old delivery out of storage?

"That's not easy," said one scout. "It's like a golfer who gets the yips with the putter. It can be hard, once you've got that, to get it back. He needs to look at videos from when he was with the Mets and Houston and get his arm angle back to being more consistent. But that's the first thing they'll do. Leo (Mazzone) is big on that video work, anyway."

Mind games: One scout who has known Hampton for years said it wasn't so much all the bad habits and bad pitches that sank him to these depths in the first place. It was everything that happened inside Hampton's head once his problems began.

	“	He tried to do too many things with the baseball (at Coors Field) to try to make up for the loss of his natural movement. It wound up screwing him up at home and on the road. He got in bad habits and that got him into bad muscle memory. ”
		— A scout on Mike Hampton

"The biggest thing with this guy is, you've got to keep his head together," the scout said. "He's a competitive guy, but he has a fragile psyche. When things are going good, he'll ride that and compete. When things are going bad, he'll jump off the bandwagon.

"But going to a place like Atlanta, he'll be a lot more comfortable just going back to his roots. I don't think he ever embraced the whole culture, the whole way of life in Colorado. Atlanta is more his kind of environment. And Bobby (Cox) is just the right kind of personality for him. He'll know when to stroke him and when to kick him in the butt. And Mike needs a guy like that."

Athleticism: This isn't Brian Bohanon or Hideki Irabu we're talking about here. Maybe the best thing Hampton has going for him is that he's such a great athlete. He doesn't just consider himself a pitcher. He's a baseball player.

"He's always been a guy who could make a lot of changes on his own," said the scout who has known Hampton longest. "If he had one bad game, he'd go look at himself in the mirror and try to figure out something new.

"He's such a good athlete, I'd bet it won't take him a lot of time to get it back. I would bet he'd be back into his old mechanics before he leaves spring training. He'll be the first to identify all the changes he made just because he was in Colorado. Now he can go back to being himself."

History: People often talk about how pitchers like Hampton "historically" do better after leaving Colorado. So we decided we'd look it up.

Four pitchers before Hampton made at least 35 starts for the Rockies, then left and made at least 35 more starts elsewhere. Here is how they did:

Pedro Astacio: As a Rockie: 129 starts, 53-48, 5.43 ERA. As an ex-Rockie: 35 starts, 14-12, 4.57 ERA.

Darryl Kile: As a Rockie: 67 starts, 21-30, 5.84 ERA. As an ex-Rockie: 82 starts, 41-24, 3.54.

Jamey Wright: As a Rockie: 91 starts, 25-33, 5.57 ERA. As an ex-Rockie: 80 starts, 25-34, 4.73 ERA.

Armando Reynoso: As a Rockie: 87 starts, 30-31, 4.96 ERA. As an ex-Rockie: 93 starts, 35-30, 4.77 ERA.

So here is what history tells us: Three of those four had winning records after leaving Denver. All of them lowered their ERA. And Wright, who didn't improve his record, still dropped his ERA by more than three-quarters of a run.

What that means, exactly, for Hampton is hard to say. But one thing is sure: He can't be any worse in Atlanta than he was this year.

"Oh, he'll be better," said one National League GM, "because if you look at what he did this year, he was the worst pitcher in the league. So getting out of Colorado, you've got to think he'll be better. But for me, he'd have to make an awfully dramatic turnaround to be somebody you could project as going 15-10 for you. Maybe he can. But I couldn't make that gamble."

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