It was the acquisition of Rich Hill near the deadline in 2021 that told me the Mets were not serious about succeeding in the home stretch. The club was 52-43 at that point—not bad, but it certainly seemed like a 'lucky' 52-43—and they needed real names to secure their playoffs chances down the line.So what does New York do? It acquires Javier Baez, who hadn't been great in a couple years, to bolster the offense and Rich Hill—41-YEAR-OLD RICH HILL—to bolster the pitching staff. Really?
The same Rich Hill that barely averages 5 innings per start?
The same Rich Hill that was close to a league-average pitcher (6-4, 3.87, 104 ERA+) with the Rays before the trade?
The same Rich Hill that had never thrown 200 innings in a season, despite being around since 2005?
THAT Rich Hill?
I was not hopeful.
His numbers with New York weren't terrible—12 starts, 3.84 ERA, nearly a K per inning—but he was just 1-4 and he offered nothing that resembled a lights-out performance.
When the Mets acquired him, they were 4.5 games up in the division. They finished 11.5 games back and eight games under .500. You can't blame that level of collapse on him alone, but he obviously didn't do much to keep such an embarrassing demise from happening, either.
The structure of Hill's career has always intrigued me. He's been around forever, but it's hard to define his role and it always seems like he misses a fair amount of time. As stated, he's never pitched more than 200 innings and he's made 30-plus starts just twice. When he was a reliever, he made 50-plus appearances just once.
So what is his role? It seems like teams pegged him as a guy who could be truly great if not used too much. Sure, his injuries have helped them make that decision, as well.
As a reliever from 2010 to 2012, he had a 1.14 ERA in 40 starts ... combined, over those three seasons. In his one full season of reliever, 2013, he had a 6.28 ERA in 63 appearances.
As a starter, he was 41-20 (.672 W%) with a 2.91 ERA from 2015 to 2019, but averaged just 17 starts and 93 innings per year during that span.
He's also quietly been one of the game's top strikeout aces, averaging more than a K per inning for his career, but even then, his true strikeout dominance hasn't been career-long. From 2005 to 2010, he averaged 8.1 K/9. From 2011 to 2019, that number spiked to 10.8, then from 2020 to today it fell to 8.2.
The guy's a shapeshifter, taking on whatever role is necessary and doing whatever is necessary to succeed at the big league level.
And in that regard, it is pretty cool that we got to have him on our team. The Mets are one of 12 big league clubs Hill has pitched for.
I've sent autograph requests to him through-the-mail twice. In 2006, care of the Cubs, he signed in two weeks. He didn't sign when I sent to him through Chicago the next year.
