The White Sox struck out a lefty Tim Hill, according to his trade tracker on MLB.com. They will always be in awe of what's left of his $1.8MM salary. Any other club can now sign him and will have to pay the league minimum for any time spent on the roster, with that amount subtracted from what the Sox are paying.
Hill, 34, was signed to a one-year contract. The White Sox began a rebuild in 2023 and had traded away a number of aging players, including releasing guys. Joe Kelly, Reynaldo López, Kendall Graveman again Keynan Middleton. When the season starts, they continue the work by posting Aaron Bummer again Gregory Santos outside the city.
The hope was that Hill could serve as a solid veteran in a relief team with a lot of uncertainty and perhaps make himself a trade before the deadline. Unfortunately, he allowed 5.87 runs per nine innings over 27 appearances for the Sox and was designated for assignment last week. With more than five years of major league service under his belt, he has the right to decline a direct assignment and opt for free agency while keeping the rest of his salary intact. Those circumstances made it inevitable that he would find himself back in freelancing.
Now that he's on the open market and can be signed for cheap, teams may be willing to ignore his ERA and find encouraging signs in his other numbers. He has always been a ground ball player, averaging 60.5% in that department in his career. He's actually been better than ever keeping the ball in the dirt this year at a career-low 65.6%, which is above the 42.6% league average for 2024. His 11% strikeout rate is incredibly low, but he only struck out 12.6%. in 2022, a season in which he managed a 3.56 ERA with the Padres.
Hill may not be as fire-breathing as a closer but he is a solid veteran with 347 big league appearances and a 4.30 ERA in that. The results this year have not been great so far but he has a .436 batting average in balls in play while pitching a club with the worst defense in the majors. The Sox have a combined -20 Outs Above Average this year, just ahead of the Pirates and Marlins, and their -52 is the worst in baseball as the Rays are second at -31. His 3.46 FIP and 3.90 SIERA paint a more flattering picture than his ERA.
With Hill being signed on the cheap and many clubs around the league battling injuries, perhaps one of them will get a chance to get better results in a different area.
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