WTH is wrong with Hill?

[Joe_Cub]

who'd he work with before in the minor league system when he first pulled it together?

[CubColtPacer]

What's wrong with Hill? Well, he just isn't very good. I don't think we'll be seeing Mr. Hill anymore in 2008 and I suspect he will be gone after the season.

 

he was very good last year.

 

at this point one would have to think it's some mental block. his command was fine the last two years. i suspect that he's going to have to figure it out himself at this point.

 

 

His control was more than fine last year. His K rate, control and WHIP were excellent for a full year and a half, a period during which he was better than Z. I don't believe he's lost it for good, as he was able to recover from several demotions in the past. But, I'm certainly losing faith in his ability to contribute this year. I wonder if they had not screwed with his dead by sending him down this year, whether he would have righted the ship with up here. He wasn't pitching that badly at the time, but the demotion started this ridiculous spiral.

 

I'm not sure the minor leagues have made him spiral any worse. His control hasn't been that much worse overall (9.45 BB per 9 in the minors, 8.24 in the majors) and a large part of that minor difference is on his bad control days, he was given a quick hook in the majors, while in the minors he's been given a little more slack and allowed to continue walking batters.

 

As far as him not getting out of the first last night, at some point with that bad of control problems you're going to give up a couple of lucky hits and give up a huge inning, even if your stuff is nasty. That's why people said his ERA was a mirage in the majors. It's just very improbable that you can continue to be productive with that high of a walk rate over a decent sample. With his control, one of these disaster starts was going to come eventually whichever level he was at.

[Elrhino]

I still think it's a mental block. I'm thinking the mechanics issues or "arm slot" are part of the symptoms, not the disease. He's just looked like he felt awkward and uncomfortable on the mound all year long.

 

That said, no way the Cubs should trade him or run him off. The light switch could switch back on just as randomly and unexpectedly as it switched off. The upside he still brings to the table is way more than the Cubs could ever get in a trade.

[Outshined_One]

who'd he work with before in the minor league system when he first pulled it together?

 

Alan Dunn, who was rumored to have gotten into a few spats with Rothschild over Rich Hill and how the Cubs were handling him in 2005 and 2006.

[ConstableRabbit]

who'd he work with before in the minor league system when he first pulled it together?

 

Alan Dunn, who was rumored to have gotten into a few spats with Rothschild over Rich Hill and how the Cubs were handling him in 2005 and 2006.

This coming after JP Riccardi said that Alan Dunn has no passion for coaching

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Two or three years ago, someone flipped his switch into the on position. He went from a wild curveballer into (more of) a strike throwing machine.

 

Then for some reason, Rothschild turned it off.

 

AH! Its Rothschild's fault. I just knew it couldn't be the beloved wunderkind Hill.

How about maybe the previous year and a half were more of an aberration and the league figured him out? One good pitch, one average pitch and he wasn't able to be aggressive anymore.

 

The league didn't figure him out, he was walking everyone because Rothschild changed his mechanics. MLB hitters were hitting .191 with a .683 OPS off him when he was sent down.

[Jehrico]

Two or three years ago, someone flipped his switch into the on position. He went from a wild curveballer into (more of) a strike throwing machine.

 

Then for some reason, Rothschild turned it off.

 

AH! Its Rothschild's fault. I just knew it couldn't be the beloved wunderkind Hill.

How about maybe the previous year and a half were more of an aberration and the league figured him out? One good pitch, one average pitch and he wasn't able to be aggressive anymore.

 

The league didn't figure him out, he was walking everyone because Rothschild changed his mechanics. MLB hitters were hitting .191 with a .683 OPS off him when he was sent down.

Lots of assumptions going on here. Did Hill's arm slot change because Rothschild changed his mechanics? Or did Rothschild see his arm slot changed at the beginning of ST, so he tried to change his mechanics to get his arm back in the right slot? I'm certainly not going to give LR a free pass on it, but I'm not going to put the blame squarely on his shoulders quite yet either, because I don't know which is the true case.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Two or three years ago, someone flipped his switch into the on position. He went from a wild curveballer into (more of) a strike throwing machine.

 

Then for some reason, Rothschild turned it off.

 

AH! Its Rothschild's fault. I just knew it couldn't be the beloved wunderkind Hill.

How about maybe the previous year and a half were more of an aberration and the league figured him out? One good pitch, one average pitch and he wasn't able to be aggressive anymore.

 

The league didn't figure him out, he was walking everyone because Rothschild changed his mechanics. MLB hitters were hitting .191 with a .683 OPS off him when he was sent down.

Lots of assumptions going on here. Did Hill's arm slot change because Rothschild changed his mechanics? Or did Rothschild see his arm slot changed at the beginning of ST, so he tried to change his mechanics to get his arm back in the right slot? I'm certainly not going to give LR a free pass on it, but I'm not going to put the blame squarely on his shoulders quite yet either, because I don't know which is the true case.

 

They said they changed it so Hill would be quicker to the plate, it wasn't a response to a new problem.

[CubColtPacer]

Two or three years ago, someone flipped his switch into the on position. He went from a wild curveballer into (more of) a strike throwing machine.

 

Then for some reason, Rothschild turned it off.

 

AH! Its Rothschild's fault. I just knew it couldn't be the beloved wunderkind Hill.

How about maybe the previous year and a half were more of an aberration and the league figured him out? One good pitch, one average pitch and he wasn't able to be aggressive anymore.

 

The league didn't figure him out, he was walking everyone because Rothschild changed his mechanics. MLB hitters were hitting .191 with a .683 OPS off him when he was sent down.

Lots of assumptions going on here. Did Hill's arm slot change because Rothschild changed his mechanics? Or did Rothschild see his arm slot changed at the beginning of ST, so he tried to change his mechanics to get his arm back in the right slot? I'm certainly not going to give LR a free pass on it, but I'm not going to put the blame squarely on his shoulders quite yet either, because I don't know which is the true case.

 

They said they changed it so Hill would be quicker to the plate, it wasn't a response to a new problem.

 

Agreed, and I think it would be hard to argue that Rothschild didn't at least delay this process.

 

However, I have to look at what Hill has been saying first. So far, he has repeatedly said three things. 1) The problems have been there since the very first time he showed up at Spring Training, 2) It's mechanical, and 3) He doesn't know where it came from.

That certainly doesn't sound like he would come even close to believing that the tinkering from the coaching staff was the problem (considering they tinkered with him after he showed up at Spring Training, and he certainly would remember those changes). I have a hard time attributing the blame to the coaching staff when he clearly doesn't, especially since the basis for blaming the coaching staff is based on a 1-2 sentence blurb in a newspaper that was very vague IIRC.

[treebird]

Two or three years ago, someone flipped his switch into the on position. He went from a wild curveballer into (more of) a strike throwing machine.

 

Then for some reason, Rothschild turned it off.

 

AH! Its Rothschild's fault. I just knew it couldn't be the beloved wunderkind Hill.

How about maybe the previous year and a half were more of an aberration and the league figured him out? One good pitch, one average pitch and he wasn't able to be aggressive anymore.

 

The league didn't figure him out, he was walking everyone because Rothschild changed his mechanics. MLB hitters were hitting .191 with a .683 OPS off him when he was sent down.

Lots of assumptions going on here. Did Hill's arm slot change because Rothschild changed his mechanics? Or did Rothschild see his arm slot changed at the beginning of ST, so he tried to change his mechanics to get his arm back in the right slot? I'm certainly not going to give LR a free pass on it, but I'm not going to put the blame squarely on his shoulders quite yet either, because I don't know which is the true case.

 

They said they changed it so Hill would be quicker to the plate, it wasn't a response to a new problem.

 

Agreed, and I think it would be hard to argue that Rothschild didn't at least delay this process.

 

However, I have to look at what Hill has been saying first. So far, he has repeatedly said three things. 1) The problems have been there since the very first time he showed up at Spring Training, 2) It's mechanical, and 3) He doesn't know where it came from.

That certainly doesn't sound like he would come even close to believing that the tinkering from the coaching staff was the problem (considering they tinkered with him after he showed up at Spring Training, and he certainly would remember those changes). I have a hard time attributing the blame to the coaching staff when he clearly doesn't, especially since the basis for blaming the coaching staff is based on a 1-2 sentence blurb in a newspaper that was very vague IIRC.

 

"i was great but then my major league coaches ruined me and now i am bad."

 

- rich hill, in the universe in which you can state your true feelings about your employers and higher-ups and they won't hold it against you

 

it's pretty unreasonable to say that, since hill himself has not blamed rothschild, it means it can't be larry's fault.

[Brett]

It's sad to think that maybe he would have been fine if the organization had just accepted the fact that he was going to get a few bases stolen off of him.

[CubColtPacer]

Two or three years ago, someone flipped his switch into the on position. He went from a wild curveballer into (more of) a strike throwing machine.

 

Then for some reason, Rothschild turned it off.

 

AH! Its Rothschild's fault. I just knew it couldn't be the beloved wunderkind Hill.

How about maybe the previous year and a half were more of an aberration and the league figured him out? One good pitch, one average pitch and he wasn't able to be aggressive anymore.

 

The league didn't figure him out, he was walking everyone because Rothschild changed his mechanics. MLB hitters were hitting .191 with a .683 OPS off him when he was sent down.

Lots of assumptions going on here. Did Hill's arm slot change because Rothschild changed his mechanics? Or did Rothschild see his arm slot changed at the beginning of ST, so he tried to change his mechanics to get his arm back in the right slot? I'm certainly not going to give LR a free pass on it, but I'm not going to put the blame squarely on his shoulders quite yet either, because I don't know which is the true case.

 

They said they changed it so Hill would be quicker to the plate, it wasn't a response to a new problem.

 

Agreed, and I think it would be hard to argue that Rothschild didn't at least delay this process.

 

However, I have to look at what Hill has been saying first. So far, he has repeatedly said three things. 1) The problems have been there since the very first time he showed up at Spring Training, 2) It's mechanical, and 3) He doesn't know where it came from.

That certainly doesn't sound like he would come even close to believing that the tinkering from the coaching staff was the problem (considering they tinkered with him after he showed up at Spring Training, and he certainly would remember those changes). I have a hard time attributing the blame to the coaching staff when he clearly doesn't, especially since the basis for blaming the coaching staff is based on a 1-2 sentence blurb in a newspaper that was very vague IIRC.

 

"i was great but then my major league coaches ruined me and now i am bad."

 

- rich hill, in the universe in which you can state your true feelings about your employers and higher-ups and they won't hold it against you

 

it's pretty unreasonable to say that, since hill himself has not blamed rothschild, it means it can't be larry's fault.

 

I'm not saying that Hill had to come out and blame Rothschild. But Hill clearly is mystified that his mechanics have changed whatsoever from last year. If you think you know what caused it, you don't throw up your hands and say "For some unexplained reason, my arm path was different from last year". He would be quite an actor to put on this act if he thought he knew what was wrong.

 

And remember, Hill would have no problem saying that it was the new mechanics because from all Hill's actions to date, he would probably blame himself for not picking up the new mechanics instead of Larry if that was the case. Hill would likely say something like "They tried to work with me on my mechanics in spring training, and I just have been slipping too much between the old way and the new way. I need to be more consistent with my mechanics and throw strikes".

A statement like that would make me much more likely to blame Larry even if I can see Hill clearly isn't. But it's hard for me to blame the coaching staff when Hill nor anybody else in the organization or media has mentioned that as a possible cause of the control problems, no matter who the blame falls on. And that's especially true when Hill comes out and continues to reiterate quite strongly that he has absolutely no idea where it came from.

[Jon]

Agreed, and I think it would be hard to argue that Rothschild didn't at least delay this process.

 

However, I have to look at what Hill has been saying first. So far, he has repeatedly said three things. 1) The problems have been there since the very first time he showed up at Spring Training, 2) It's mechanical, and 3) He doesn't know where it came from.

That certainly doesn't sound like he would come even close to believing that the tinkering from the coaching staff was the problem (considering they tinkered with him after he showed up at Spring Training, and he certainly would remember those changes). I have a hard time attributing the blame to the coaching staff when he clearly doesn't, especially since the basis for blaming the coaching staff is based on a 1-2 sentence blurb in a newspaper that was very vague IIRC.

I would think, though, that if a pitcher began spring training with control problems, changing his mechanics would be a risky proposition. Instead of focusing on correcting the control issues, they altered his mechanics and hoped that it would help take care of his control. It looks like it only made things worse. They rolled the dice a bit and it didn't pay off. And as for what Rich has said publicly, there's no way he'd place any of the blame on the coaching staff. He's been slammed for speaking up before and he's not going to put his neck on the line like that.

 

In addition, just because the mechanical changes were intended to be minimal doesn't mean that the result will also be minimal. I defer to this post BK made back on April 11:

 

Bob's Keeper[/url]"]Is there reason to be concerned with Rich's mechanics? Let's see:

 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v384/bobskeeper/RHrelease.png

 

The above graph shows Rich's release points, with 2007's in dark blue and 2008's in red. (Units are in feet left/right of center of home plate for the x axis, feet above ground for the y axis.) With the standard caveat that the 2008 data has an extremely small sample size, there does appear to be a difference. His release point so far this season looks to be more consistent that it was last season; in 2007 he seemed to alternate between an overhand delivery and at times he dropped down to more of a three-quarter sidearm delivery. So far in 20008, however, almost all of his pitches have been in the latter with few if any coming from a true overhand arm slot.

 

I'm not sure yet if this is a bad or good thing. The conventional wisdom seems to be that a more consistent delivery will get you more consistent results/control, but that certainly hasn't been the case with Rich so far this season. I'm tempted to compare Rich's effectiveness when he has the overhand release point versus when he drops down a tad. The anecdotal evidence from 2008 seems to suggest he's much more effective when he keeps that arm angle up.

There was a clear difference back in mid-April. If his release point stayed consistent for the last few weeks that he was up with the Cubs, I think it would be safe to say that the change was a bad thing.

 

 

The question now is what to do with him. There's no way for us to know how his back is doing, but with the trade deadline approaching, I'd imagine that Hendry would be pretty hesitant to shut him down and have him work strictly on the side for two or three weeks. But I also don't know what these performances are doing to his trade value. Hill's recent outing may not be making it that much worse considering he's probably already in high-reward project status.

[Elrhino]

99% of pitchers come into spring training trying to work or improve on something ... whether it's a new pitch, a new grip on an old pitch, quicker approach to the plate, etc. etc. I could buy the mechanics excuse more if he were barely missing off the plate, but when you're hitting batters and throwing to the backstop, I think it's more mental. If you carefully analyzed and broke down film of every pitcher, what are the odds that they keep the same exact arm slot with just a finite variation. Especially if you compare the film from multiple seasons? I'm not sure Greg Maddux ever throws from the same arm slot in a single inning, much less over multiple seasons. I think this is just grasping at straws trying to explain the unexplainable.

[CubinNY]

If you carefully analyzed and broke down film of every pitcher, what are the odds that they keep the same exact arm slot with just a finite variation.

Pretty damn good.

 

I think the maintaining variables might be different than what caused the initial problems. Perhaps changing Hills mechanics was the major cause of his problems at the onset. However, I have a hard time believe that those changes are maintaining the problem. I think it is partially "mental" but mostly physical. I have no idea how to correct those problems.

[Jehrico]

I wouldn't think his problem is in his arm slot, based on the assumption that the graph bk provided is still accurate. If his release point is more consistent than it was before, and the location of the release point is within the same range of where it was last year, he shouldn't go from what he was doing last year to the Ankiel like performance he's put up this year. Simply put, his release point is within the range he showed last year with less standard deviation. There's something else going on. I believe that either somethings not quite right with his arm/shoulder/elbow, or it's mental, or a combination of the two.

[UK1679666180]

His delivery with that severe shoulder tilt has to be nearly constant and almost perfect for him to maintain consistent control. If there's a slight glitch, it could go from ok to awful simply b/c of the moving parts in his delivery. You look at his delivery compared to Maddux and you see why his delivery sometimes leadsto poor command or a negative adjustment can lead to horrible results. At this stage, I'm glad it's not an injury and could still poss. be fixed.

 

I'm sure part of his problem has become mental, there wouldn't be anyone that what he has gone in '08 to wouldn't have it take a toll on them mentally or damage their confidence.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

I still say hidden shoulder injury.

[anabiono]

i am starting to think we may not see him back in the bigs this year

 

have they taken him to get examined?

 

i mean...how in the world do you just lose it like that?

[Elrhino]

His delivery with that severe shoulder tilt has to be nearly constant and almost perfect for him to maintain consistent control. If there's a slight glitch, it could go from ok to awful simply b/c of the moving parts in his delivery.

 

If true, then I'm afraid this kind of catastrophic inconsistency is what we should come expect from Hill even if he does get himself straightened out this time.

[UK1679666180]

That tilt makes it difficult for the hitter to pick up the ball, but it has its consequences.

[Jon]

His delivery with that severe shoulder tilt has to be nearly constant and almost perfect for him to maintain consistent control. If there's a slight glitch, it could go from ok to awful simply b/c of the moving parts in his delivery. You look at his delivery compared to Maddux and you see why his delivery sometimes leadsto poor command or a negative adjustment can lead to horrible results. At this stage, I'm glad it's not an injury and could still poss. be fixed.

 

I'm sure part of his problem has become mental, there wouldn't be anyone that what he has gone in '08 to wouldn't have it take a toll on them mentally or damage their confidence.

It was the shoulder tilt that they wanted to work on, no? I can't remember if that was this spring or the end of last year.

 

Do you think it's possible that the increased consistency in his release point earlier this year could be problematic and that the variation was a good thing for him? Of course, he has probably gone through changes since his first few starts at Iowa.

[UK1679666180]

It was this year & I think they were working on the fact that Hill had too much shoulder tilt, even compared to last year.

 

No, you want to see him consistent as possible with his delivery.

[Joe_Cub]

Rich Hill allowed six runs on four walks in 2/3rds of an inning for Iowa on Friday, and the Cubs brass will huddle to see what their next step is. General manager Jim Hendry said Hill's problems are not physical.

 

http://chicagosports.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseball/cubs/cs-080620-aj-pierzynski-chicago-white-sox-cubs,1,4950766.story

[TruffleShuffle]

i don't really know what a next step would be. it's either pitch for iowa or pitch for a team lower down in the minors. he's not jason neighborgall wild to the point where he can't pitch in any baseball game at any level. i highly doubt that work on the side will fix anything. he has to do it in game situations. i suspect that as quickly as he lost it, he could get it back, but the question is whether the switch will go back on or not.