The Yankees are bringing back a known quantity for their bullpen. Left-hander Tim Hill is returning on a one-year, $2.25MM deal, per ESPN’s Jeff Passan. The pact includes a $2.5MM club option for the 2028 season. Hill is a client of Paragon Sports International.
Hill, who will turn 37 in Spring Training, has pitched for the Yankees since midway through the 2024 season. The soft-tossing lefty is primarily a ground ball specialist. He has a 63.2% ground ball rate for his career, and since the start of 2024, over two-thirds of batted balls against Hill have been on the ground. That’s easily the best mark among qualified relievers in that span.
For the first two years of his Yankees tenure, Hill backed that up with solid run prevention. In 111 innings with New York from 2024-25, he delivered a 2.68 earned run average, held opposing hitters to a .604 OPS, and posted a sharp 5.7% walk rate. Hill’s 44.0% hard-hit rate in that time was not great, but thanks to the gaudy ground ball numbers, he did a good job of keeping the ball in the yard. He allowed only ten home runs in that span with New York, a rate of 0.81 homers per nine innings.
This past year was a different story. Hill led qualified relievers once again with a 68.8% ground ball rate, but his ERA shot up to 4.60 in 58 2/3 innings. Crucially, he allowed a dozen home runs, or a career-high rate of 1.84 HR/9. It was a strange mix of poor luck on the homers and good luck on other forms of contact. Opponents batted just .228 on balls in play off Hill, continuing a three-year trend of low BABIP values, and he also ranked in the 66th percentile by barrel rate (just 6.6%).
Under the surface, ERA estimators were split on Hill’s work. His 5.93 FIP suggested he was quite fortunate to post that 4.60 ERA, while his 3.66 SIERA was more favorable and right in line with last year’s 3.70 SIERA. Meanwhile, the bulk of the damage against Hill came from right-handed batters, who put up a .293/.365/.543 slash line against him. Lefties, on the other hand, batted .213 with a .611 OPS against him.
However lucky Hill was (or wasn’t), his ground ball specialty and still-solid numbers against lefties makes this a decent, low-cost reunion for the Yankees. The team was set to lose six big league relievers in free agency. Hill is not on the same level as David Bednar or Paul Blackburn, but he fills a role and comes back at a minimal cost that shouldn’t inhibit the Yankees’ pursuit of those two.
Bednar was given a qualifying offer, which the 32-year-old seems likely to reject in favor of a multi-year deal. MLBTR ranks Bednar at No. 12 on our list of the Top 50 Free Agents and predicts he’ll sign a four-year, $68MM contract. Blackburn should also find a multi-year deal after breaking out with a 1.59 ERA in 85 innings. Aside from those targets, New York is also considering Adrian Morejon, who is the top reliever in this year’s class, as well as a reunion with old friend Jonathan Loaisiga.
Photo courtesy of Vincent Carchietta, Imagn Images
