Mets Interested In Tim Hill

The Mets have “been interested lately” in left-hander Tim Hill, Newsday’s Tim Healey reports.  Hill has now drawn some looks from two different New York boroughs, as the Yankees were also linked to Hill’s market last month.

Adam Ottavino, Jake Diekman, Phil Maton, Drew Smith, Brooks Raley, and Ryne Stanek are all free agents, and the Mets have largely looked to replace this relief depth with a bevvy of minor league signings and waiver claims.  Griffin Canning was signed to a big league deal and looks to be part of the bullpen mix, as well.  Amidst all of these moves, however, Danny Young is the only southpaw bullpen option on the 40-man roster, so the Mets certainly have a need for more left-handed pitching help.

Signing Tanner Scott would certainly address the bullpen balance in a major fashion, yet regardless of whether or not the Mets’ pursuit of Scott pans out, a veteran arm like Hill would also help.  Hill got a taste of the New York spotlight last season, when he posted an outstanding 2.05 ERA over 44 regular-season innings with the Yankees and then a 1.08 ERA in 8 1/3 playoffs innings.

A .238 BABIP certainly contributed to that success in the pinstripes, and for an extreme groundball pitcher like Hill, batted-ball luck has largely contributed to his ebbs and flows over his seven MLB seasons.  Hill has a 3.99 ERA across 322 1/3 career innings with the Royals, Padres, White Sox, and Yankees, with an excellent 61.8% grounder rate.  He was an average strikeout pitcher at best in the early part of his career, but Hill’s strikeout rate has dropped to just 11.8% over the last three seasons.  The decrease in strikeouts has also generally coincided with a dropoff in home runs, as keeping the ball in the park was also an issue for Hill earlier in his career.

Hill turns 35 in February, and given how two rough months with the White Sox preceded his strong showing in the Bronx, the left-hander will surely land just a one-year contract in free agency.  That might fit well with David Stearns’ usual approach to investing in relief pitching, as the Mets president of baseball operations has rarely spent much on bullpen arms, instead preferring to develop relievers from within or to find hidden gems on minor league deals.