Athletics lefty Rich Hill is doubtful to make a start on Sunday, the next open day in Oakland’s rotation, manager Bob Melvin told reporters including MLB.com’s Jane Lee (Twitter link). Hill left his most recent start after only five pitches when a blister on his left middle finger popped.
It seems that the ill-timed blister is still not responding well enough to get Hill back on the bump. Oakland now has a razor-thin margin for error in getting the southpaw back in action before the trade deadline. While it’s theoretically possible that he could be traded without making another start, there’s little question that it would seriously hamper his value — particularly given the 36-year-old’s lack of a big league track record.
Hill is already a highly unconventional trade candidate, having resuscitated his career late last season. He has been nothing short of masterful, though, since signing with the A’s over the winter, and carries a 2.25 ERA with 10.7 K/9 and 3.3 BB/9 over 76 frames on the year.
Oakland surely felt it had dodged a bullet when Hill made it back from an earlier groin issue without any ill effects. In his first two starts of this month, he delivered 12 innings over which he permitted just three earned runs on seven hits and four walks, striking out 16 along the way. Excepting that most recent, truncated outing, however, he has now gone two weeks without pitching.
MLBTR’s Mark Polishuk recently examined the potential market for Hill’s services, discussing the impact of the blister — which now seems only to be rising in relevance. As the list of potentially available starters shows, there’s a significant dearth of pure rental rotation additions out there for the taking. But at this point, Hill won’t be able to log two more starts unless he’s able to make an appearance early next week. Odds are, it seems, the A’s will be banking quite a bit on a single remaining outing before accepting final bids on the unique lefty.
Should of traded him when he had value
He certainly still has value, but obviously it has diminished over the last week or so for it’s high mark.
On a side note: does anyone else seem to be having tons of issues with the comments section today????
Same can be said for us and Viz. I have had issues, I commented, as it shows 46 minutes ago and this is the first refresh I made that it came up.
I think the best comparison to the late career boost would be R.A. Dickey. Dickey, much like Hill, had a very mediocre career until he got to the Mets at age 35. Of course they don’t pitch the same obviously, but Dickey won his Cy Young at 37. Could Hill win one next year? It would definitely be a great story.
Nice update Jeff. Say Hill gets bumped down the line on tradable SP, where does that leave your Top 3 most likely tradable SPs?
I find it hard to believe he ends up being trades. Seems like I see his name a lot lately for missing starts. Maybe I’m wrong. I don’t follow him or the A’s much but recently hearing he might be traded I’ve all of a sudden started noticing when his name pops up and it’s usually because he’s hurt it people or looking at him as a possible trade target.
Could be a blessing in disguise when the A’s go on a blistering 2nd half run to make the postseason all because of Rich Hill not being able to be traded.
This injury will be a blessing in disguise when Hill doesn’t get traded and the A’s make a blistering 2nd half run to make the wild card game.
Nice one there.
A bit more complicated but doable. You just trade him for a ptbnl. The player can be selected from several tiered lists of players, the tiered list you may select from depends on how much Hill pitches/how he performs for his new team. Jesse Crain was injured/on the DL and traded under similar circumstances several years ago.
Of all the injuries he could get this is certainly the best bad news the A’s could have received. Teams desperate for pitching will still be willing to offer something good for Hill, not a top prospect but some usable part. .
put some bag balm on the blister and eat more potato chips.