Trade for Rich Hill

Background
An above-average starter in 2006-7, Rich Hill fell out of favor with Cubs manager Lou Pinella last year, was demoted to AAA Iowa, then struggled mightily with his control in the minors and even into the winter league. Out of options and crowded out of the Cubs' deep rotation, he was available on the cheap. The Orioles acquire him for a PTBNL, the quality of which will depend on Hill’s performance. Hill is a 6'5" lefty who turns 29 in March.

Stats

Year	Tm	G	W	L	SV	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	SO	ERA	WHIP
2008	CHC	5	1	0	0	19.7	13	9	9	2	18	15	4.12	1.57
4 Yr		276	18	17	0	333.7	291	173	164	48	137	309	4.37	1.27

GG's Take
Like a federal witness forced to relocate, to start his baseball life anew Rich Hill was deposited with a team in the other league with ample rotation spots open and no chance of haunting the Cubs in a World Series matchup. But it can be argued that if Hill can turn his career around, Baltimore is the place. He is reunited with pitching coach Rick Kranitz, who once helped Hill overcome control problems in the minors. He is in a low-pressure environment with a premier defense to track down the many fly balls (his GB% is in the 30-40% range, which is very low) that Hill typically allows. But let’s not overstate the odds of success. As recently as December in the Venezuelan Winter League, Hill was fooling no one. Early reports from spring training claim his signature curveball is biting but the odds of his returning to relevance are low – PECOTA, Baseball Prospectus' forecasting system, pegs his chances of reaching the performance level of his last three years (even including last year's failures) at 21%, to be precise.

ND's Take
Wow, I must suddenly be the voice of optimism around here, because this is the best move the O's made all offseason. It's better than Pie, it's better than sending away Hernandez, it's better than jettisoning Cabrera. OK, maybe it's not as good as signing Markakis and Roberts long-term, but those are internal moves that don't count.

Rich Hill wasn't just above average in 2007. He was one of the top pitchers in the NL that year. He was 5th in the league in strikeouts, 8th in WHIP, and in the top 15 in ERA+. His minor league stats are even more overwhelmingly positive. In 165 IP in AAA (spanning two seasons) before he got called up in 2006, he had 227 Ks to go along with a 2.51 ERA and a 0.91 WHIP. Even last season wasn't as bad as everyone makes it out to be. He still had a 4.12 ERA, which was 8% better than league average! Yes, his WHIP was up because of his control problems, but he was still unhittable, giving up only 13 hits in 19+ innings.

Add to that that he's reunited with his AA manager (Dunn, who is now the O's bullpen coach) and AAA pitching coach (Kranitz, who is now the O's pitching coach), and all the pieces are there to get him back on track.

Look, it's possible that Hill is the latest victim of Steve Blass Disease, in which a pitcher mysteriously loses the ability to throw strikes. It's also quite possible that Hill was hurt last year. He claims to have had a bad back, which altered his release and threw off his whole pitching motion. If that's true, we just got ourselves a #2 starter for nothing.

This is EXACTLY the type of move the O's need to be making if they ever want to contend in the AL East. Our money is still Confederate to the big name FAs. There is only so much success any farm system can have, and there are always bound to be holes and unexpected failures. When an opportunity like this comes along, you have to jump on it, and I give Andy MacPhail a ton of credit for making this move.

Best of all, if Hill ends up walking guys around the bases, we still lost nothing by it. The PTBNL will be a nobody, and whatever innings Hill throws would likely have been nearly as bad had they been thrown instead by Hendrickson or Liz or Bass.