Rethinking Tim Hill

Look beyond all the former closers in the Padres bullpen and you'll find a unique lefty that just keeps getting better.

If I had to single out one arm out of the bullpen for the 2021 San Diego Padres that has been the most valuable, outside of the shark cosplaying as a closer, I think the one I would land on would be Tim Hill.

This is weird, because Tim Hill has always been thought of (by me) as a lefty specialist. The type of pitcher that, before the rules changed, you’d bring in to face a single tough lefty hitter in a clutch situation and then replace him with someone a little bit more well rounded. Turns out, and I know this will be a shock to everyone, I was very wrong about Tim Hill! Perhaps others were too.

Starting a trend that wouldn’t last

During his rookie campaign with the Royals, and before the three-batter rule was instituted, Tim Hill was not used as a lefty specialist. However, with his submarining delivery, he fared better against lefties than righties.

He wasn’t very good against right-handed hitters (.276 batting average), but he much better against left-handed hitters (.230 batting average). In 2019, he dropped both numbers. Righties hit .238 against him and lefties touched him for .186. This is when A.J. Preller took notice and traded Franchy Cordero to get him.

Maybe they forgot to tell Tingler?

Someday, we’re going to talk about how ugly these uniforms are.

Jayce Tingler, first-year manager, was probably getting instructions from the front office. It’s too cruel to put all of the blame on him. However, whoever was making the call definitely decided that they wanted Hill to face lefties and to try and avoid righties.

Despite the three-batter rule that makes it harder to use a pitcher against one specific type of batter, Tingler would often bring in Hill to face a left-handed hitter with two outs in an inning to try and accomplish the feat. As a result, for the first time in his career, Tim Hill faced more left-handed hitters than right-handed hitters in 2020.

I’m going to keep using batting average because it’s really easy to understand. In 2020, Hill’s numbers went back to their rookie form. Lefties hit .225 off of him and righties tagged him for a .258 average. Going into this season, it was easy to see why he wasn’t considered one of the potential closer options.

The Rothschild Effect

If we’re going to talk about Larry Rothschild’s methods potentially leading to more arm injuries on the Padres (we’ve touched on this, probably more to come later), we need to give him credit for what he does best:

Larry Rothschild gets his pitchers to throw sliders. For the ones that already throw sliders, he helps them throw better sliders.

Tim Hill, somewhat out of necessity (he’s occasionally been thrown out there in extra innings to try and make chicken salad out of chicken shit), has seen more right-handed batters than left-handed batters. And, so far, his numbers are eye-popping in their strangeness (even when you factor in the small sample size).

Left-handed hitters are batting .444 off of him (uh oh!) but right-handed hitters are hitting .080 against him. A look at the pitches he’s throwing shows that he’s trading in some sinkers for sliders:

As well he should, because his slider has also jumped 100 RPMs from last year to this year. That makes it a more effective pitch coming at the righties than it was before and gives it more sink than it used to.

Also, and this might be a side effect of the new baseball, Tim Hill’s fastball has less vertical movement than ever before. He’s nearing the point where it looks like a rising fastball.

As for the ineffectiveness against left-handed hitters, I think part of that is small sample size and part of that is figuring out how he can be most effective against lefties (more fastballs) and most effective against righties (more sliders). This will definitely be a trend to keep an eye on this season.

Hill hasn’t done anything crazy and hasn’t reinvented himself, but through little adjustments he has made his 3-pitch arsenal more effective (at least against righties) and turned himself into a complete reliever that the team can turn to in a pinch to get crucial outs.

One more thing…

Here’s a thing I didn’t know about Tim Hill that I learned when I came across his Wikipedia page:

Hill's father died of colon cancer in 2006. Hill was diagnosed with colon cancer during spring training of 2015. Half of his colon was removed and he underwent eight months of chemotherapy, before being cleared by his doctor in January of 2016. Hill also suffers from Lynch syndrome.

You can read all about it in this article that came out right around the time he made his MLB debut in 2018.

No wonder he doesn’t seem phased when he comes into big moments, bases loaded against the best offense in baseball. Tim Hill beat cancer. This is just baseball.