Free agent left-hander Rich Hill is going to be throwing for interested clubs on Friday, reports Robert Murray of FanSided. It’s not known which clubs will attend the throwing session but Hill has already reportedly received interest from the Yankees and Dodgers.
Hill is attempting a fairly unique mercenary mission this year, something that he’s had in mind for a while. Back in August of 2022, he told Rob Bradford of WEEI that he wanted to skip the first half of 2023 but then participate in the second half. The idea would allow him to both spend more time with his family, choose a team in playoff contention and also theoretically give him more firepower as he wouldn’t need to pace himself for the grind of a full season.
Though the idea was in his head over a year ago, he didn’t follow through on it in 2023. He signed with the Pirates on a one-year, $8MM deal, making 22 starts with a 4.76 earned run average. He got flipped to the Padres at the deadline but then both he and the club faltered. He got bumped to the bullpen and was even put on waivers at one point but went unclaimed. He ultimately recorded an 8.23 ERA in his ten outings with the Friars.
He has been more committed to the plan this year. In October of last year, he mentioned it to Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune and hasn’t diverted since. In May of this year, he told Ian Browne of MLB.com that he had turned down offers from three clubs in the offseason but was still throwing to keep his midseason plan afloat. Last month, Pete Abraham of the Boston Globe reported that Hill was throwing from a mound and had interest from the Yankees and Dodgers.
It’s an intriguing experiment and the timing is also perhaps not a coincidence. With the trade deadline now in the rear-view mirror, teams are fairly hamstrung in how they can go about upgrading their rosters. There are still a few ways, as MLBTR’s Steve Adams recently laid out, but most of them involve making moves around the margins.
The recent trade deadline was often characterized by observers as having a lack of clear sellers, which seemingly led to high asking prices on the few players that were available. For clubs that balked at those prices, they may be intrigued by the opportunity to acquire Hill for nothing more than cash.
A source tells Murray that Hill isn’t even doing this for the money but more a desire to win. Hill has already banked over $75MM in earnings, per his Baseball Reference page, but doesn’t have a ring. He pitched in the postseason for the 2007 Cubs and then the Dodgers from 2016 to 2019, but he was with the Twins in 2020 when the Dodgers won the World Series.
Hill could potentially be an impact addition if the self-shortened season allows him to get back to his old self. He’s already had one of the more unique trajectories, as he debuted way back in 2005 and had one of his best seasons in 2007, tossing 195 innings for the Cubs with a 3.92 ERA.
But his results tapered off from there and he struggled to get a lengthy opportunity for almost a decade. From 2008 to 2015, he didn’t hit 60 innings pitched in any of those major league seasons due to a combination of injuries and underperformance. He came roaring back with the Dodgers in 2016, his age-36 season, and kicked off a remarkable second act. From that year and through 2020, he had a 3.01 ERA, 28.3% strikeout rate and 8.2% walk rate in 476 innings.
In 2021, his age-41 season, his ERA climbed to 3.86. Then it was 4.27 in 2022 and 5.41 between the Pirates and Padres last year. Perhaps Hill’s ERA would have continued climbing if he tried to pitch another full season but he’s hoping that acting as a late-season hired gun will help him deliver better results with less volume.
How that plays out will be an interesting situation to monitor. There are only about seven weeks remaining in the regular season schedule at this point. Though Hill is throwing on his own, he will probably require a few weeks of ramp-up once he signs, a sort of belated Spring Training. In a best-case scenario, he can bolster a club’s rotation down the stretch and then factor into their postseason rotation as one of the freshest October arms around, despite now being 44 years old. Per Murray, Friday’s throwing session takes place at 10am Eastern time at Champion Physical Therapy and Performance in Waltham, Massachusetts.
