The Blue Jays have declined to exercise their options for Aaron Hill's 2012-14 seasons, according to Shi Davidi of Sportsnet.ca (Twitter links). However, they will be able to exercise options for 2012 or 2012-13 after the '11 season and GM Alex Anthopoulos says he still considers the second baseman a core player.
After the coming season the Blue Jays can either exercise a 2012 option for $8MM, the 2012-13 options for $16MM total or decline the options and allow Hill to hit free agency next fall. The team can no longer exercise the 2014 option, which would have been worth $10MM.
Hill, who turned 29 last week, finished the 2010 season with 26 homers and a .205/.271/.394 batting line. His extremely low batting average is at least partially attributable to the fact that no qualified hitter in baseball had a lower batting average on balls in play last year.
In other news, water is wet.
And the sky in Toronto is blue today. Open dome?
They never open it this early.
Nice guy, but personally never liked his game.. I like his old game better in the minors, he had less power but got on base at a much better rate. . To me he has signified all thats been wrong with this team in the last few years.. Oh its okay that you have a .304 OBP because you hit 25HR’s … not everyone on the team needs to hit jacks, leave Slugging to the corner infielders and outfielders, 2B,SS, and CF need to get on base.
Even in his break out year where pretty much everything went right for him, his OBP was a pedestrian .330..
I hope he has a really good year, restores his value and AA flips him to a team looking for power.
Do you think that there’s a chance that Aaron can return to being the 2005-06 Aaron Hill (OBP wise) but at the same time, maintain his power bat? I agree with you. I don’t know why he changed his game since the minors. He was a lot better disciplined at the dish when he first came up than he has the last 4 seasons. Hopefully, the Jays hitting coach adopted a new hitting philosophy with him this year.
I doubt he would able to improve his OBP while maintaining his power, but thats a sacrafice I would gladly take…
The team has enough power hitters and not enough base runners. I would ask him to shorten his stroke, instead of pulling everything, try to become a gap doubles hitter instead…
that being said, easier said then done.
A pedestrian 330obp combined with 108 rbi’s 37 doubles and 36 homers. Who out there who is remotely attainable going to bring more to the table with doubles power and obp?
Mistake
If the Jays fall out of it early (or even if they don’t) and Hill re-establishes some value, I think he’ll be traded. If Utley’s going to be out past the All-Star break (or even if he is and they just want some insurance), I could see the Phillies come knocking.
What would they have to give up though? Cannot imagine Hill will come cheap for any teams.
misleading article they only declined the 2014 option…
they will pick up atleast one option and hope hech is ready when that contract is up
exactly, no chance he’ll be an FA after this season, they’ll prob pick up the 2 year option
Unless he repeats ’10, Jays almost certainly pick up both option years.
“no qualified hitter in baseball had a lower batting average on balls in play last year”
Cesar Izturis is somewhere smiling.
so is Neifi Perez
Nelson Liriano is smoking a fat cigar right next to him
What is it with most Jays fans wanting to trade every good player they have for prospects.
psst. Hill isn’t that good.
Anyone who wants to talk about BABIP and write Hill off as just plain unlucky please look at this comment from John Hale
“Anyone who watched the Jays last year knows that Hill wasn’t getting unlucky in the slightest. His contact SUCKED. His whole season was one weak pop-up, head down, jog to first after the other. Hill looked like a completely different hitter, his beautiful compact line drive swing gone long and loopy – and a little deeper delving into the numbers agrees: his fly ball rate soared from his terrific 2009 (41.0), past his career average (41.4), to insane heights (54.2). His line drive rate also fell from 2009 (19.6) past his career average (18.5) to untold depths (10.6). His infield fly percentage (one of my favorites because it’s a 100% guaranteed out – like a hidden strikeout, but still included as a ball in play) rose from 11.6 to 12.9. Spraying balls like this will clearly and provably lead to a consistently much lower BABIP. And so the numbers actually overwhelmingly agree with what the old-timers would say: Hill’s swing went to hell last year. Luck had nothing to do with it”
Both sides of the argument are oversimplifying it. Anybody who JUST looks at BABIP (without the underlying contact numbers) is always putting up a faulty argument, but to say that he fell all the way to a .196 BABIP just because of his crappy year is taking it too far. He was bad AND unlucky.
He had the lowest line drive percentage of any player in at least the last decade, and by a lot. It was also just a little over half his career average. That babip was no fluke.
the low line drive rate does not justify the BABIP enough. It was way too low.
Yeah, there’s no way hitting line drives at half the league average would lead to a low batting average on balls in play. Line drives hardly ever result in hits.
This is a point that certainly needed making, however, I think that it is too strong to say that luck had nothing to do with it. Despite his bad swing, we could still say that he got unlucky. The real problem is that he wasn’t “making” any luck for himself with that long swing. So you take a bad swing and add poor luck, and that is how you end up with some of those numbers.
Hill at times was unlucky but his swing/timing was also way off after that injury.
It was just a disaster season for him. He did so bad early on that he just couldn’t recover. I think the same goes for Lind.
Both looked good today though.
hill’s contract was a work of genius, now the jays get another year to evaluate him and still have the ability to retain his production at an affordable price if he gets back to good form.
The wild card about Aaron Hill is the absence of Vernon Wells. Vernon is a good guy and a good player but he had way too much influence on Hill. Without Vernon as big bro he might actually make some adjustments.
Thats completely rediculous.
I second this statement
Ooh, ooh, ooh. I can do this too.
See, after getting hit in the head by David Eckstein, Aaron Hill along with the concussion experienced temporal anomalies Quantum Leap-style. He would phase into other people and return back into his body during an at bat – all along improving the lives of the people he ‘leaped’ into. As the effects from concussion dissapated so did the frequency of the temporal anomalies. So this year with less distractions of improving lives of others during an at bat he’ll be better.
Uh-oh.
Sounds plausible, looks ritarded.
Want Blake DeWitt for him?
Comedy. I like it.