Imagine a world without Clayton Kershaw. Following baseball would be a lot less entertaining for those who derive joy from watching a dominant player perform at an all-time great level, but at least the sport wouldn’t be devoid of standout left-handers. The likes of Chris Sale, David Price, Madison Bumgarner, Jon Lester, Cole Hamels, Dallas Keuchel, Jose Quintana and Rich Hill would still be around, after all.
One of those names is eye-catching, and it’s certainly not Sale, Price, Bumgarner, Lester or Hamels, all of whom have long track records of excellence. Keuchel has faltered in the early going this season, but he was stellar in 2014 and followed that up with an American League Cy Young Award-winning campaign in 2015. Quintana, meanwhile, has been one of baseball’s most effective starters since his coming-out party in 2013.
Now we arrive at the 36-year-old Hill, who ranges from four to 10 years the senior of every other southpaw listed above. This is the same Hill who, prior to last September, hadn’t made a major league start since 2009. Between 2007-15, he appeared in the majors with seven different teams – including multiple stints with the Red Sox – and toiled with a slew of minor league clubs. As recently as last August, Hill was in the independent Atlantic League as a member of the Long Island Ducks. The Red Sox then brought back Hill on a minor league deal in mid-August, and they summoned him to the majors a month later. Beginning on September 13th, Hill embarked on a four-start rampage that saw him strike out 32 hitters, walk five and compile a 1.55 ERA across 29 innings. Hill parlayed that resoundingly successful three-week run into the richest payday of his career when he landed a one-year, $6MM deal with the Athletics in November.
Over nearly twice the sample size this year (57 2/3 innings), Hill’s brilliance has continued. Among qualified starters this 
season, Hill ranks eighth in ERA (2.18), ninth in FIP (2.72) and 13th in K/9 (10.13). His 3.60 xFIP is less exciting, albeit still easily above the league-average mark of 4.03, and Hill’s 48.5 percent grounder rate trails only Noah Syndergaard, Kershaw and Danny Salazar among pitchers who have struck out at least 10 batters per nine innings. Amazingly, Hill manages to keep company with their ilk despite neither throwing particularly hard nor possessing an expansive repertoire with which to confound hitters. His 90.4 mph average fastball isn’t exactly imposing, and Hill relies almost exclusively on two pitches. The thing is, opposing offenses can’t seem to figure out either pitch. Hill’s curveball, which he has thrown a little over 50 percent of the time this year, has been the second-most valuable curve in the league to this point, according to FanGraphs. His four-seamer, deployed on 44 percent of pitches, has been the league’s 11th-most valuable fastball, placing him in a class with Syndergaard, Stephen Strasburg and Johnny Cueto.
Moreover, Hill hasn’t shown vulnerability against either left- or right-handed hitters. Lefties have slashed a terrible .200/.238/.254 line while facing Hill, and righties (.207/.320/.280) haven’t exactly resembled Mike Trout. All of that amounts to a .237 wOBA, which means Hill is turning enemy hitters into something resembling the toothless 2016 versions of Jose Iglesias (.234) and Alexei Ramirez (.245).
Everything isn’t perfect for Hill, granted, whose BB/9 of 3.28 is too high. He also could face regression from his 79.2 percent stand rate and .287 batting average on balls in play. Further, Hill has the league’s third-lowest swing rate (40.7 percent), so perhaps his numbers will revisit Earth if opposing hitters adjust and start trying to put the ball in play more against him. Of course, when batters have made contact against Hill, not much has happened. His 16.3 percent infield fly rate ranks seventh in the league, and Statcast (link via Baseball Savant) indicates that Hill has allowed an 86.3 mph average exit velocity on batted balls. Kershaw, by comparison, is at 86.4. As evidenced by some of the other names on the leaderboard, surrendering soft contact doesn’t always guarantee results, but it can’t be construed as a negative. Neither can limiting the distance of batted balls, which Hill has also done. At an average of 191 feet, he’s once again right in line with Kershaw, who’s at 192.
All of this analysis leads us to the fact that the A’s have an eminently valuable commodity on their hands as the August 1st trade deadline creeps closer. At 20-28, Oakland is already nine games out of the AL West lead and 7.5 behind in the Wild Card chase. What’s more, the A’s don’t look like a highly talented team destined for an appreciable turnaround. Assuming the club’s losing ways continue, there won’t be a compelling reason for executive vice president Billy Beane and general manager David Forst to retain Hill beyond the deadline. Not only is Hill a pending free agent, but he’ll likely be the top starter available over the summer if the A’s shop him. That should only serve to drive up the A’s asking price and enable them to secure something enticing in return for Hill. The only reason trading Hill wouldn’t make sense is if the A’s intend to extend the lefty, which can’t be ruled out.
The A’s and Bay Area-rival Giants aren’t known for dealing with each other, but Hill would seem to fit rather well in San Francisco’s rotation as it tries to secure an NL West title. The Giants have an outstanding trio in Bumgarner, Cueto and Jeff Samardzija, but they’re looking for answers otherwise. Another go-around with the Red Sox might make sense, too, given the uncertainty in their rotation past Price, Rick Porcello and knuckleballer Steven Wright. Teams like the Royals, Tigers, Rangers and Orioles (one of Hill’s previous employers), among others, look more hard up for rotation help than the Giants and Red Sox, and bear in mind that Baltimore may have created some in-season spending room with a pair of trades earlier this week. It’s also possible an injury (or injuries) will open up a need that doesn’t currently exist on another club’s starting staff, of course, thus leading to another potential Hill suitor.
FanGraphs pegs Hill’s 2016 contributions at $13.6MM in worth, which means the A’s have already more than doubled their investment so far, and – barring an injury to Hill or a drastic, unexpected decline in performance – they’re primed to continue building on that surplus value over the next couple months. When those months pass and the season reaches the deadline, the A’s will be in position to transform an aging player on whom they took an offseason flyer into at least one quality young piece from another team. Oakland has made some head-scratching decisions in recent years (the Josh Donaldson trade and the Billy Butler signing come to mind immediately), but the move to buy low on Hill is going as smoothly as the club could have hoped, and has the chance to continue paying dividends in future years.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
“What’s more, the A’s don’t look like a highly talented team destined for an appreciable turnaround.”
Um, they have 13(!) guys in the DL -most since the early 70’s in team history. If they cut that in half within a month and stay less than 10 games under .500 they certainly could still make the postseason – even being deadline buyers. They are self-sabotaging their season in making extremely questionable moves in who they’re bringing up – going with AAAA scrubs over actual prospects (Zach Neal? Seriously???) Mengden, Chapman, Healy and Overton should be on the big league team right now imo, and the sooner they do that the sooner they will start winning games.
They also could trade Hill and still contend if Gray comes back as the one we all know – like Straburg who stunk until he went on the DL then came back with a vengeance, I predict Gray will do the same this year. If Henderson Alvarez can throw 6+ of under 4 ERA ball that would make all the difference.
But keeping Hill and having a month of a fully healthy Gray-Hill-Alvarez-Mengden-Manaea rotation would turn around their season in a hurry. Bring up Overton and even Alcantara as relievers to help out the already-taxed guys and they will win. The offense looks way better than last year and the bullpen is good when its not being asked to throw 5+ every game.
That is a lot of if’s and expectations of guys returning from injury/ being called up to perform at a moderate level immediately and the fact all the teams in the division are better maybe you can argue the A’s being better than the Angels but its a close argument even in that.
Lowrie went 2-4 last night in his return, Reddick’s injury isn’t going to effect his plate discipline and do you believe 5 bad Gray starts are his new norm, after never being at all bad ever in his life?
The A’s are also better than the Astros and possibly the Mariners in that if Seattle has any injuries to key players, they have no depth whatsoever to cover them. I’d bet they have some injuries eventually over them not having injuries.
Bottom line: the AL West has no clear best team other than Texas, who’s still in-progress on that front but will definitely take the division once Darvish returns..
My point is that I take umbrage with the comment that they “don’t look like a highly talented team destined for an appreciable turnaround.” – that’s way off base if you don’t add “currently” or “if no one returns from the DL” to it, they simply are not a bad team at all when they don’t let Neal, Graveman or Triggs pitch.
Cry a river because they aren’t going to go to the playoffs
God you suck. So do the A’s.
Its still May, and they won’t suck all year. You however, for that personal attack, will continue to suck your entire life until you learn how to create a valid counterpoint to someone you dont agree with. Buh bye!
Your counterpoints are garbage fanboy reactions and you never admit when you’re wrong and you ALWAYS think your opinion is the end all be all. You fill these sections with paragraphs of uselessness.
The A’s are not contending this year and I am a A’s fan. They have been in rebuild mode all year long. they have some great prospects in the minor so its contend in 2018. that being said if Hill keeps pitching the way he has been they will get a great prospect in return. Look how they were able to flip 3 potential FA last year. In return for those 3 they have Khris Davis, Manaea, and Mengden all having great years so far. So any team wanting Hill it will take a great prospect for him. Some team will over pay for him.
Other than Manaea and Barreto the A’s system is awful. Bottom 10 at least. Go to any list and look at the 3, 4, 5 guys on it. All are the sort of players you’d find in the high teens on a good farm.
My bet seamholic this is a complete guess on your part. Ever heard of Matt Chapman? Richie Martin? Renato Nunez? Of course you haven’t since you made that statement. Maybe you mistaken the A’s for the angels.
What a dumb, trash statement. Dont even bother talking if you believe this, because you literally do not know anything about the A’s.
Like, Manaea isn’t even in the system, he’s in the bigs. Chapman, Healy, Alcantara, Overton, Martin, Nunez, Olson, DANIEL FRICKIN MENGDEN AND HIS 0.79 ERA in 57 IP, Gossett, Meisner….god damn what a dumb post you made. You need to apologize for it.
They were in first place in late April until injuries happened. Over the next 4 weeks, they are replacing McBride, Triggs, Smolinski, Neal & Ladendorf with Reddick, Gray, Alvarez, Phegley & Hendriks (and possibly Mengden if he continues to have a sub-1.00 ERA at AAA) – if you don’t think thats an absolutely, season-changing scenario, then I can’t help you other than to point to the standings in August and say “see?”
“You however, for that personal attack, will continue to suck your entire life until you learn how to create a valid counterpoint to someone you dont agree with. Buh bye!” Good call douche. your counterpoint here isn’t valid at all, you personally attack and then just literally name the players in the farm system. You’re not disproving his point at all. The A’s are on the edge of almost every writers bottom 10 farm systems. Manaea’s in thie bigs because of injuries and has got lit up. If your huge ego hasn’t figured it out yet, no one on here can argue with you because you never think you’re wrong. You just type more. Start contributing to a discussion and stop trying to overpower people on a message board you freakin loser.
Other than A’s fans I don’t expect any other fans to know how good the A’s farm system really is. The A’s infield will be one of the best in baseball within a few years, and they have a lot of young talented pitching.
The A’s aren’t doing anything this season. He never said it wasn’t because of injuries. Face it, they just, suck.
They went 13-12 in April, you probably weren’t even a baseball fan then, like all fake Cubs “fans” now.
It’s funny cause you call other people clueless
It’s funny because I back up my comments with facts and numbers and you are just a worthless troll.
You called the one Cubs fan clueless because he said there rotation was set and they have a good closer in rondon because he disagreed with you. In my eyes, a healthy athletics team is the 4th best team in that division, maybe 3rd. And I bet more people agree that you are the troll here, or at the very least, very biased, not me
JFisnasty knows whats up. Just another fan obviously doesn’t even know what a troll is or that he’s the worst of them. All he does on here is tell other people why they’re wrong. Not even that he thinks they are and that they’re entitled to their position on subjective topics, but that they ARE wrong, because he knows everything. Please. He’s got a mouth like O.Co’s plumbing, just spews sewage all over the place. If baseball played out like the numbers, they wouldn’t even need to play the game. The guy obviously doesn’t have an eye for baseball and can just look at site’s of numbers where people do all the work for him. I’m tired of his garbage.
Even with them all back they’re a bottom 3 team in the AL, and frankly, I think person for person even the Twins are better.
seamholic just has nothing better to do than post nonsense here. i proved he was wrong about the A’s minor leagues system which he could easily look up. He is just wishing his team won even one world series.
With the A’s it seems like you have a better chance of making the big league roster being outside of the top 30 prospects than being a top 10 prospect. I constantly see guys who are not anywhere on the prospect list get promoted and start while the top guys tear it up in the minor leagues
That is a very valid point. Whoever decided Zach Neal over Daniel Mendgen (or even Overton or Alcantara) needs to be fired.
I’d pick the Angels making the playoffs before the A’s, Trout, Pujols and Kaulhoun can get them to .500 once all three get hot. Once they get there anything can happen.
They need to let Nunez, Chapman, and the other prospects develop down in the minors. Can’t bring them up to early like the Jays did with Graveman and ruin them. The A’s aren’t going anywhere this season. My opinion they should trade Hill before old age gets to him.
Great well written article.
Wonder if the D-Backs would rather have hill or Miller right now?
They should keep him until the deadline. If he continues to perform at a high level he will bring a top prospect back. At this point they could get a mediocre return at best because not everyone is sold. A solid year would make him the best starter on the market.
I vividly remember the last time Lou Pinealla came to the mound for the man known then as “One Pitch Rich,” and knowing that it was the final time he’d be seen in a Cubs uniform. 8 years later, and perhaps I was mistaken.
Still can’t believe the Red Sox didn’t resign this guy. They got to see first hand what he can bring.