1:48pm: Hill gets a $2MM signing bonus and will earn $12MM in 2017, $16MM in 2018 and $18MM in 2019, according to the Associated Press.
12:02pm: The Dodgers announced today that they’ve officially re-signed left-hander Rich Hill to a new three-year contract. Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register reported over the weekend that the two sides were closing in on a deal. Yahoo’s Tim Brown reports that Hill, an ACES client, will receive a $48MM guarantee over the life of the deal (Twitter link).
Hill, 37 next Spring, has had one of the most remarkable late-career renaissances in history, as he’s still just 18 months removed from pitching with the Long Island Ducks of the independent Atlantic League. Hill parlayed a September roll of the dice by the Red Sox in 2015 into a one-year, $6MM deal with the A’s last offseason. For Hill, even last year’s $6MM represented a life-changing number, as he’d never earned more than $1MM in a single MLB season. Prior to this deal, Hill had earned just over $9MM in parts of 12 big league seasons, per Baseball Reference.
Despite a groin strain and a blister issue that limited him to 110 1/3 regular season innings in 2016, he proved to be a steal for Oakland, who traded him to the Dodgers alongside Josh Reddick for three well-regarded young arms (Jharel Cotton, Grant Holmes and Frankie Montas) just before the non-waiver trade deadline.
Over his past 152 1/3 Major League innings (including the postseason), Hill owns a ludicrous 2.13 ERA. He’s racked up 184 strikeouts against just 44 walks in that time while also keeping the ball on the ground at a roughly league-average rate. While the durability concerns that accompany him are very real — Hill has made more than 20 starts just once in his career, back in 2007 — Hill was the only arm on the free-agent market that had the potential to pitch at the top of a Major League rotation. The Dodgers, in need of quality innings behind ace Clayton Kershaw (who missed two months with a back injury in 2016), can afford better than any club to take this level of risk on Hill.
With this re-signing, Hill will join Kershaw, Kenta Maeda and Julio Urias in the team’s Major League rotation next season, and the Dodgers are teeming with options beyond that quartet. Los Angeles has three injury-prone options that have proven to be quality arms when healthy in Scott Kazmir, Brandon McCarthy and Hyun-jin Ryu, but reports have indicated that the Dodgers are shopping Kazmir and McCarthy. Other options for the fifth spot include Alex Wood, Jose De Leon, Ross Stripling and Brock Stewart, giving president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman, GM Farhan Zaidi and the rest of the L.A. front office plenty of flexibility as they explore various trade scenarios this winter.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
The dominos are falling quickly. Wonder if they trade Wood or Ryu
Ryu has no trade value. As for Wood, I think they see him as a reliever now.
I love the winter meetings! And with the delay of a lot of FAs due to the new CBA, there’s still a lot of players left on the market.
I’m at the winter meetings
Never been, that’s sounds awesome! What’s it like?
I was there yesterday. Met Jon Heyman
That sounds horrible
Same! We should hang out
Wow can I get your autograph????
Good for him.
Enjoy his many DL stints the next 3 years haha
I highly doubt it.
He may have some wear and tear in his 3 years but everyone has those kind of injurys but I doubt he will have a significant injury outside of an extreme accident (For example the Rivera torn ACL shagging fly balls, Saunders ruining his knee hitting a sprinkler)
If you watch the video, Hill is throwing his sweep/swoop/12-6 curve correctly, which is putting little stress on his arm. Also he primarily only throws 2 pitches (four Sean and his curve) and distances himself from tougher, more strenuous pitches like his Sinker or Slider.
It’s all relative though. He’s not a knuckleballer and the only real example we have of a pitcher pitching this long is Jamie Moyer so we have to see the return on this investment.
I think it’s safe to assume that any starting pitcher that has only broke the 20 start barrier once in the last decade is an injury liability.
That was due to TJS and really bad luck he was classified as a reliever for most of the time past 2008
The Red Sox attuned him back into a starter.
610 innings over most of 12 seasons is low, even for a full-time reliever. Really difficult to ignore even his recent injury history.
Starter or reliever, he has only made more than 32 appearances in a season once. Most relievers average twice that number of appearances. He’s been playing since 2005, so you can’t attribute 11 years of only being able to contribute for a full season once as ‘bad luck’ that you expect him to turn around.
Not even a full time reliever, he got sparse opportunities in the majors
It’s not like he was a full time reliever his inning count was that of a September call up
This long? Hill is now under contract for his ages 37, 38 and 39 seasons. Moyer pitched until he was 49!
Keep telling yourself that, buddy. More wasted money for Dodgers management.
Pitchers are always a risk for arm injury. God didn’t create us to throw a baseball overhand. No matter how correctly a person throws a curveball it puts stress on elbow
But not as much as it had before, his curveball and slider usage was all wrong.
That’s what could have been the culprit for his multiple muscle/arm injures (spasms, TJS, etc.)
It may still put stress on his arm, sure I don’t doubt that, but it doesn’t put as much stress as it did before
And as we know; less stress = less risk of injury
While sure injury is still a prevalent problem, and hell Hill may have a 3rd TJS, but I don’t see that happening due to
1.) his pitch usage:
He hardly throws anything but a fastball and his 12-6
In this last sample size of 110 innings, only 6% were not a fastball or a curveball.
So he’s gliding away from hard sliders and tough sinkers that could injure his arm.
2.) The way he throws his curveball:
The way Hill throws his curve, a 12-6 (or what I like to call a swoop curve) is the correct way to throw a curveball, he lets it roll of his fingers with less of a “snap” of the wrist than he had before, which reduces the stress on his elbow and shoulder and therefore reduces the chance of injury.
3.) He’s going to be a lot more careful with this money:
Hill has been playing for a contract, let’s face it here; he has been putting his all in for the last 7 or so years getting cups of coffee. This overwork, stress, and just overcompensating his pitches can cause injuries.
But now, he has job security, and he can take his time in his starts and just ease through his starts instead of playing for a contract and risking an injury.
Hill is a resilient guy, I hope the best for him, he’s had one of the best comeback stories of all time and now he’s getting acknowledged for his accomplishments in the highest level of baseball in the world.
So here’s to a sub 3 ERA.
Good for hill, but bad for the dodgers. Hill could only end up giving the dodgers 150 innings through three years.
And even if he gives us 150 per season, I would imagine those 150 innings will be high quality. He doesn’t have a ton of wear and tear on his arm, it is just the blister issue that is the only thing that could be a recurring issue. If the Dodgers manage his innings well enough, 150-170 innings of ace-like pitching will be worth the $48 million contract. Plus we have ridiculous pitching depth to be able to manage something like his.
I think what he said went completely over your head. Hill is 36. He has never pitched an entire 33-34 start season in his career and the last time he only had one DL stint was in 2007 and he has averaged 3 per season. @hittingnull was saying that Hill may only give the Dodgers a TOTAL of 150 innings over the next 3 years. I think he is a little low on his estimate, but I seriously doubt Hill puts up 300 IP total over the next 3 years.
Funny… in his entire career (including the minor leagues, he has throw 130 innings exactly twice.)
Now the world thinks (even when he spent all the time on the DL and only threw 110 innings) that he will somehow magically give you 150 innings in years 37-39?
Good luck. I am just glad the dodgers created more dead money for themselves (I suspect he will give 110-130 innings against next year.. good luck on the rest)
Funny, most of that time, he was pitching in relief.
Couldn’t have said it better. Really happy for Hill, who remade himself late in his career, but betting $48 million on him seems like a poor risk for the Dodgers. The chances are poor that he will suddenly throw 180 innings a year for 3 seasons at age 37 after having done it once ever, and 10 years ago. Likewise, even when he was healthy earlier in his career, he was a ~4.00 ERA guy. It doesn’t seem too likely that at age 36, he suddenly became 1.50 runs better.
+1
That’s a good news/bad news scenario. The good news is the Dodgers signed the best FA SP on the market. The bad news is he def won’t give you anywhere near 200 innings per season. We all have to pray long and hard that Ryu comes back healthy and better than ever this spring.
This is a fallacy. Yes, having guys who give you 200 innings is very important, but Hill was more valuable in 110 innings last year than most pitchers in baseball
It’s also the fallacy of averages. Hill has been a full time starter for only a few years in his career. The average-makers add together all the seasons he was a reliever and all the seasons shorted by injury and call that what should be expected from him now.
He can’t help the team get a win when he is on the DL or missing games because of blisters or shoulder problems or elbow problems or oblique strains or any of the other reasons he has had over the past 10 years. That is why pitcher WAR is so flawed. It doesn’t matter if you have a 1.83 ERA and a 3 WAR if you only pitch 15 games. I’ll take the guy with a 3.50 ERA who puts in 32-34 starts every time. The 32-34 start guy simply gives your team more opportunities to win games, especially a team with a good offense like the Dodgers.
Pitcher WAR might be flawed but using ERA to evaluate a pitcher is just plain silly.
That is a lot considering the guys on the D.L. for 3 different stints every year, but don’t get me wrong when he’s healthy the guys lights out.
is there a comeback player of the decade award?
Kershaw, Hill, Urias, Maeda and Kasmir, with Wood, Ryu, McCarthey, Stewart, Stripling and DeLeon as depth. Not bad to start.
They will be trading some of those guys and there contracts. McCarthy for sure. Wood possible also.
Scott Kazmir 2.0 for Dodgers
Rosenthal said the Dodgers are hoping he can give them 120 high-quality innings. So the Dodgers just gave a 37-year-old, injury prone starter that has only been successful for 1-2 years $16 million per year for 120 innings? Doesn’t make any sense to me but maybe I’m missing something
Without getting into whether or not it’s true the Dodgers are targeting that…120 top quality innings is well and truly worth 16mil.
If the Dodgers do get 120 innings of recent-quality Hill and supplements it with 80 innings of, say, DeLeon and/or Stewart, the combined 200 innings should be well worth the less-than $17 million it would cost.
Nope. You have to realize that signing Hill to a $16 million AAV contract, it costs the Dodgers a 50% fine and a 12% surcharge (62% total fine) this season because they went more than $20 million over the luxury tax threshold. That means that Hill really costs them $24.3 million per year.
Well Ricky if that is the reason for the signing then all I can do is laugh and laugh as how dumb the Dodgers are
24 starts over 2 seasons.
They actually are paying $24.3 million for him when you include his $16 million AAC and the fines for going over the luxury tax threshold.
This is Jason Schmidt part 2!
Brandon McCarthy and Ibandel Isabel to Philly for Colton Murray
(Say Philly takes on $3m a year)
Cost efficient back-ender and a class a first baseman for a decent reliever
Dodgers never learn!! What’s the over/under on how many starts before Hill hits the DL.
5.
Backloaded. Shades of Frank McCourt. Tells us something about where they expect overall payroll to go over the next three years.
He was only pitching for the Long Island Ducks 24 starts ago. He’s been great, there’s no arguing that. But… oh well.
YES!! That puts the Dodgers at $221.5 million in payroll and more than $20 million over the luxury tax threshold. So they will be paying 50% fine plus another 12% surcharge for every dollar over $195 million. KEEP spending on injury prone pitchers Dodgers!!
Hill, Kashmir, McCarthy and you might get 150 IP combined for your $45 million.
This is the price of the continuing policy of acquiring flash in the pan injured, cheap pitchers. They are betting on even longer shots that a high percentage of the farm arms will be great in the bigs. I get “build the farm” mentality, but the FO has been far too myopic. If they had bought one high quality FA pitcher last year, they could avoid this musical chairs of second rate pitchers while providing the kids more time to develop. Hill will help a little, but he’s really just another flash in the pan that will dim quickly.
I certainly wouldn’t give $18M to a pitcher at age 39, but whatever, I guess the Dodgers can afford it. Is their debt situation really so bad that they had to backload the deal like this? The only worse example of a backloaded contract I can think of is how the Angels are going to be paying Albert Pujols $30M at age 41.
You haven’t looked at Miguel Cabrera’s contract, have you?
I don’t think it’s debt so much as the luxury tax.
bunch of Dodger haters and self loathing Dodger fans ALWAYS stink up the comment sections anytime the Dodgers do anything.