Rich Hill..... whats going on with this kid

[dclark0699]

he's still putting up great K ratios with good low BB's but is getting hammered by the HR....

his ERA is now at 3.81 after tonights 6ER

Most epxerts predicted hi ERA around 4.10 and 11-12 wins, so a 3.81 looks good. He also has only three out pitches similar to Zito, so you won't be seeing an ERA title anytime soon.

Well he only has one OUT pitch....similar to Zito.

[BobbyRoberto]

He also had an insanely low BABIP (Batting Average on Balls In Play) that was due for regression. Heading into today, his BABIP was .242, meaning a lot of balls that should have been hits were caught. As that number regresses toward ~.290 (with more balls falling in for hits), Hill's ERA and WHIP will go up with it.

He's still a good pitcher to have, but no one should have expected a 2.50 ERA all season long. If he finishes under 4.00 with 175 strikeouts, that's a good year.

[dclark0699]

He also had an insanely low BABIP (Batting Average on Balls In Play) that was due for regression. Heading into today, his BABIP was .242, meaning a lot of balls that should have been hits were caught. As that number regresses toward ~.290 (with more balls falling in for hits), Hill's ERA and WHIP will go up with it.

He's still a good pitcher to have, but no one should have expected a 2.50 ERA all season long. If he finishes under 4.00 with 175 strikeouts, that's a good year.

I agree with you and disagree with you. i Agree that expecting a 2.50 ERA all year is ridiculous. A 4.00 ERA and 175 K's is about what I expected when I drafted him....maybe thought I'd get a few mroe wins out of the Cubs lineup, but so be it.

I will again disagree with the notion that he has an "insanely low BABIP and is due for regression". A pitcher's BABIP should not be compared with every pitcher in the league because every pitcher is different. The giant breaking ball will be dribbled and popped up more than the average pitcher, thus resulting in few hits on balls in play.

How could you possibly determine that "a lot of balls that should have been hits were caught"? Have you seen every out made this year with Rich Hill on the mound? If so, I stand corrected. But unless the Cubs defense have made 26-27 diving plays in the field then you can't say that balls should have been hits and weren't. BABIP is one of my least favorite of the new sabremetric stats because I depends largely on the pitcher.

[BobbyRoberto]

You're missing the whole point of BABIP when you say "BABIP is one of my least favorite of the new sabremetric stats because it depends largely on the pitcher."

The whole point of BABIP is the following (from Baseball Prospectus' glossary):

Batting Average on balls put into play. A pitcher's average on batted balls ending a plate appearance, excluding home runs. Based on the research of Voros McCracken and others, BABIP is mostly a function of a pitcher's defense and luck, rather than persistent skill. Thus, pitchers with abnormally high or low BABIPs are good bets to see their performances regress to the mean. A typical BABIP is about .290.

Further research has shown that a very small minority of pitchers have a small influence on their BABIP, maybe .280 instead of .290, but a pitcher with a BABIP of .213 (which is where Rich Hill was 3 weeks ago) is experiencing a lot of luck.

Now, as you point out, I have not seen every out made this year with Rich Hill on the mound. But the defense doesn't have to make "26-27 diving plays in the field" to influence BABIP. Think of it more like when Hill's on the mound and the hitter rips a hard grounder right to the shortstop for a groundout. Maybe the next time the hitter hits a grounder just as hard, but it's 10 feet over and goes for a base hit. Hill got the ground ball both times, but he can't MAKE the hitter hit it right at the fielder every time.

Hill's BABIP at different levels over the last couple years:
2004 Dayton: .296
2005 Peoria: .313
2005 AA: .297
2005 AAA: .300
2005 MLB: .306
2006 AAA: .282
2006 MLB: .259

That's pretty consistently around .290-.300. Last season looks like the outlier.

Hill has a great breaking ball and you may think he gets dribblers and pop-ups more than the average pitcher, but the numbers don't show this. The numbers show he's an extreme fly ball pitcher with a very low GB-rate (36.4% heading into today), hence the home run problem that he has (giving up all those fly balls, many will go over the wall).

Hill in 2007:
Through June 7th: 5-4, 2.71 ERA, 0.98 WHIP
His peripherals: 8.4 K/9, 2.8 BB/9, 3.0 K/BB, 1.2 HR/9, .213 BABIP

Since June 7th: 0-2, 7.41 ERA, 1.69 WHIP
His peripherals: 8.1 K/9, 2.6 BB/9, 3.1 K/BB, 2.6 HR/9, .360 BABIP

He's striking out nearly the same number of hitter and walking slightly fewer, keeping his K/BB almost exactly the same, but the HR-rate and BABIP tell the rest of the story. He's basically been the same pitcher when you look at the things he controls the most (strikeouts and walks). He wasn't as good as he looked before June 7th and isn't as bad as he's looked since.

[dclark0699]

Hill's BABIP at different levels over the last couple years:
2004 Dayton: .296
2005 Peoria: .313
2005 AA: .297
2005 AAA: .300
2005 MLB: .306
2006 AAA: .282
2006 MLB: .259

That's pretty consistently around .290-.300. Last season looks like the outlier.

Those are the numbers that matter right there. Compare a pitcher to HIS career BABIP, not the major league average. Now I didn't know that his career numbers were in those range.

But as with all stats....things don't "even out"...maybe regress a little...but it isn't as though he is going to hit a streak where he eperiences a BABIP of .428.

[dryice]

babip is mostly luck, with small caveat that flyball pitchers like Hill usually manage to maintain a little less of a hit rate. Hill imho a much better pitcher than Zito and should stabilize toward very good stats cuz both his strand rate and his fly ball/hr rate are big outliers for the last month or so (essentially luck driven also), and some improvement there will wash out his gravitating toward the mean hit rate. Would definitely retain Hill's services cuz of his whip and so's, plus that offense should be doing a lot better than it's been doing.

[Ender]

His early season success was largely driven by BABIP and the wind blowing it at wrigley so this was to be expected. Pitchers are just really streaky, they'll be unhittable one month and have a 6 ERA the next, its just how it goes.

[Fantasy Man 27]

He never played at Dayton...maybe you're talking about Daytona?

Ask Mariano Rivera about BABIP.

[BobbyRoberto]

Yep, Daytona. My mistake.

[A Fleshner Fantasy]

He also had an insanely low BABIP (Batting Average on Balls In Play) that was due for regression. Heading into today, his BABIP was .242, meaning a lot of balls that should have been hits were caught. As that number regresses toward ~.290 (with more balls falling in for hits), Hill's ERA and WHIP will go up with it.

He's still a good pitcher to have, but no one should have expected a 2.50 ERA all season long. If he finishes under 4.00 with 175 strikeouts, that's a good year.

I agree with you and disagree with you. i Agree that expecting a 2.50 ERA all year is ridiculous. A 4.00 ERA and 175 K's is about what I expected when I drafted him....maybe thought I'd get a few mroe wins out of the Cubs lineup, but so be it.

I will again disagree with the notion that he has an "insanely low BABIP and is due for regression". A pitcher's BABIP should not be compared with every pitcher in the league because every pitcher is different. The giant breaking ball will be dribbled and popped up more than the average pitcher, thus resulting in few hits on balls in play.

How could you possibly determine that "a lot of balls that should have been hits were caught"? Have you seen every out made this year with Rich Hill on the mound? If so, I stand corrected. But unless the Cubs defense have made 26-27 diving plays in the field then you can't say that balls should have been hits and weren't. BABIP is one of my least favorite of the new sabremetric stats because I depends largely on the pitcher.

Well, i agree that BABIP isn't as great a stat for people in their first or second year, however I love it for veterans, since reather than comparing it to the league avg., you compare it to that pitcher's stats the previous years. Right now, his BABIP is only slightly lower than it was all season last year.