Rich Hill Is Staying With The Dodgers For Three Years, $48 Million, And It's A Risky Move
Rich Hill is about to enter his age-37 season, and he’s had a salary north of one million dollars just once during his 12-year major league career.
In 2015, Hill went to spring training with the Washington Nationals, was sent to their Triple-A affiliate, never made it to the major league level with the Nationals, opted out of his contract with Washington, and went back to his home state of Massachusetts to practice with his hometown American Legion team. From there, he faced live batters while pitching for an independent league team on Long Island, and that’s when the Red Sox came calling. Hill started four games for Boston at the end of the season, struck out ten batters in each of his first three starts, and accumulated a 1.55 ERA before heading into free agency.
The Oakland A’s scooped him up about three weeks into free agency on a one-year, $6 million deal, and cashed in, as they’ve been known to do, at the trade deadline, flipping Hill to the Dodgers with Josh Reddick, both rental players, for three young pitchers. Prior to being dealt to the Dodgers, Hill was placed on the disabled list with a groin injury in June, was activated in early July, but missed a start in late July because of a blister, and then was placed on the disabled list by the Dodgers for that same blister once he was acquired. Hill was traded to the Dodgers on August 1, but didn’t make his first start for LA until August 24. He would miss one more start after that DL stint with a blister-related issue.
Now, for all the injury risk involved in bringing Hill back to the Dodgers, we’re talking about an average annual value of $16 million. The Dodgers can afford that. They can afford anything, really. But let’s not lose sight of just how good Hill has been since the Red Sox gave him a look in September of 2015. Since his first start with Boston that year on September 13, 133 major league pitchers have made at least 20 starts. Here’s a list of the pitchers who have a better ERA than Rich Hill over that span — 1.) Clayton Kershaw (1.74). That’s it. Hill has a 2.00 ERA since that first start with Boston in September, 2015. Only Kershaw has been better. Same thing with WHIP. It’s Kershaw No. 1 (0.74), and Hill No. 2 (0.93). Oh, and their strikeouts per nine innings are identical (10.66), tied for sixth best in the majors over that span.
Don’t get me wrong — for as great as he’s been, this contract is a big risk for a number of reasons. The biggest one is the one we’ve already discussed, which would be injuries, but then you have to factor in his age, and also the inconsistencies in his performance throughout his career. That’s a pretty big roll of the dice to go three years on a pitcher who didn’t have their breakout year as a starter until their age-36 season. Also, signing a pitcher through their age-39 season when they’ve only had one standout year seems like the type of move that you could eventually look back on and wonder what the hell you were thinking. I hope that’s not how this story ends, because Hill deserves a fairytale ending to his career. Just thinking logically here.
But, all that being said, Hill was one of the best, if not the best, free agent starting pitchers on the market, and the Dodgers could definitely use the help, so a reunion made sense from that standpoint. The Dodgers can also further justify the package that they had to give up in order to acquire him at the deadline this year by retaining his services. If he can stay healthy, I think he’ll be just fine. But, taking one look at his injury history over the course of his entire career, there’s a trend here, and it’s not a good one. I just don’t think that he can stay healthy, unfortunately, especially as he enters the final years of his career. That doesn’t mean that he can’t give the Dodgers some high quality innings in between DL stints, though.